Oriental Legacy- Speeches of General Presidents of Last 50 Sessions of AIOC

About the Book Prof. Gautam Patel

The origin of the All India Oriental Conference goes back to the year 1911 in which Sir Harcourt Butler called a meeting of Orientologists at Simla to discuss the proposal of holding an oriental conference in India on the model of the International Congress of Orientalists, the first session of which was held in 1873. Prop. Vogel put forth the proposal. Eight years later, in the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute which was newly founded in Poona, a resolution was passed on 12th December 1918 in the meeting of the Executive Board to hold a Conference. Consequently, first session of Indian Oriental Conference was held in the premises at the Bhandarkar Institute from 5th to 7th November 1919.

It is indeed our great pleasure to present to the fraternity of scholars of Oriento logy this volume of speeches by General Presidents delivered during the last 50. sessions of All India Oriental Conference... This compendium embodies a priceless document of the history of the onward march & Oriental studies spanning a period of hundred years it is, in fact, a perpetual memorial of all the luminaries who will the leading lights on the path of oriental learning. It is a record of the great academic achievements at the pillars of Oriental culture who brought glory and dignity to various branches of oriental studies, be it the ancient languages like Sanskrit, Arista, Arabic, Persian and Prakrit it or Archeology or Philosophy or Religion or even Fine Arts and Technical Sciences in the Orient.

From the year 1933 the conference came to be officially called All India Oriental Conference. Since its inception every session of the Conference was held as a biennial event, Sessions were held at different places from Shrinagarto Trivandrum, from Ahmadabad to Gauhati, to Calcutta, to Vishakhapattanam, to Chennai etc. Gradually the membership of the conference increased from 300 to around 2500.

This intellectual intercourse happening in every session of the conference led the steady and positive progress in different branches of Oriental learning.

About the Authors Recipient of Certificate of Honor from President of India, Prof. Gautam Patel is an acclaimed scholar of international reputation. He has been honored with the titles like 'Vidyavachspati', 'Ved Ratna', 'Shastrachudamani', 'Brahmarishi' etc. He served the Gujarat Sanskrit Sahitya Academy as President and played key role in the establishment of Sanskrit University in Gujrat as the Chairperson of the University Formation Committee. He has about 150 books and 70 research papers to his credit. He has been invited by various universities in USA, Canada, UK, Netherlands, Austria, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Tibet, China and Kenya. He has been honored with the title Mahamahopadhyaya by Kaviulaguru Kalidas Sanskrit University, Ramtek.

Mrs. Saroja Vidyadhar Bhate

Prof. Bhate is an Internationally acclaimed scholar of Sanskrit Grammar. She has served several institutions in various capacities, visited several countries on academic assignments and has several worthy publications to her credit. She was Professor &Head of the department of Sanskrit and Prakrit Languages during 1987 -2001.She served as Local Secretary, All India Oriental Conference 36th session held in Pune in 1993. General Secretary of the 40th to 49th sessions of the All India Oriental Conference. President, Prajnapathashala Mandai, Wai. Vice-President M. M. Abhyankar Shastri Pathashala, Pune. Hon. Secretary, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. Managing Trustee, Panini Pratishthan, Pune, Secretary, Samskrit Pracharini Sabha, Pune. Prof. Bhate has visited Univiersities in Germany, UK, Poland, Holland, Switzerland, Japan, Spain, USA etc.

Prof. Shrinivasa Varakhedi

Prof. Shrinivasa Varakhedi is the Vice Chancellor of Kavikulaguru Kalidas Sanskrit University, in Ramtek, Maharashtra. Being a scholar of Nyaya & other ancient Indian shastras, he is one of the earliest traditional scholars who took up computer programming in the area of computational linguistics. He has been awarded the Maharishi Badarayana Vyas Samman by the President of India, for contributions in interdisciplinary research. He has published in the areas of computational linguistics, Sanskrit literature and darshana shastra. He created the structure to the newly set up Directorate for Sanskrit Education in Karnataka State during 2010 - 2011. He is member of various committees and national & international academic bodies. He worked as a member of the committee for vision document for the development of Sanskrit constituted by MHRD Govt of India. He has been Honored with several National Awards.

Prof. Madhusudan Penna

Prof. Penna is Professor and Dean in the department of Bharatiya Darshan and is also the Director, Research and Publication, Kavikulaguru Kalidas Sanskrit University, Ramtek. He has been honored with many national awards like Pt. Satwalekar Award (Maharashtra), Somanath Award (Gujarat), and Best Sanskrit Scholar Award (Telangana). He has composed two Mahakavya and Eight Laghukavya in Sanskrit and translated the entire Bhushansara in English for the first time. He has about 30 books to his credit. He visited the Netherlands and Vancouver, Canada on academic purpose. His Yoga and Vedanta lectures are available in DVD form.

Preface It is indeed our great pleasure to present to the fraternity of scholars of Orient logy this volume of speeches by General Presidents delivered during the last 50 sessions of All India Oriental Conference. This compendium embodies a' priceless document of the history of the onward march & Oriental studies spanning a period of hundred years. It is, in fact, a perpetual memorial of all the luminaries who will the leading lights on the path of oriental learning. It is a record of the great academic achievements at the pillars of Oriental culture who brought glory and dignity to various branches of oriental studies, be it the ancient languages like Sanskrit, Arista, Arabic, Persian and Prakrit it or Archeology or Philosophy or Religion or even Fine Arts and Technical Sciences in the Orient.

The origin of the All India Oriental Conference goes back to the year 1911 in which Sir Harcourt Butler called a meeting of Orientologists at Simla to discuss the proposal of holding an oriental conference in India On the model of the International Congress of Orientalists, the first session of which was held in 1873. Prop. Vogel put forth the proposal. Eight years later, in the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute which was newly founded in Poona, a resolution was passed on 12th December 1918 in the meeting of the Executive Board to hold a Conference. Consequently, first session of Indian Oriental Conference was held in the premises at the Bhandarkar Institute from 5th to 7th November 1919. The opening speech was delivered by the then Covernor of Bombay H.E. Sir George Lyod, Dr. R. G. Bhandarkar, the world renowned Indologist was elected President of the conference. Among those who attended the conference were scholars of unprecedented eminence such as Prof. A.c. Woolner, Prof. R. Zimmermann, Prof. J.J. Modi, Prof. S. Kuppuswamy Shastri Prof. Khuda Bukhch and many other, this session was attended by more than 315 delegates and was divided into 12 sections covering a wide range of areas from Vedic and Avesta to Technical Sciences.

Among two papers presented included topics such as, "Modern Science in ancient Iran', King Akbar and Persian translators from Sanskrit’s', 'Dialect A Burmese, 'State interference in ancient Indian Industries', and 'Melodic classification of Indian Music'.

A separate section for papers in Sanskrit provided by Mahamahopadhyay Laxman Shastri Dravid and an exhibition at old and rare manuscripts, illuminated scrolls of the Mahabharata of Quran, old coins and paintings were the special feature of this first session. From the year 1933 the conference came to be officially called All India Oriental Conference. Since its inception every session of the Conference was held as a biennial event, Sessions were held at different places from Shrinagar to Trivandrum, from Ahmadabad to Gauhati, to Calcutta, to Vishakhapattanam, to Chennai etc. Gradually the membership of the conference increased from 300 to around 2500. Every session saw delegates from all the corners of the country who witnessed fruitful academic deliberations and who were able to interact with scholars from different places and research areas. This intellecnial intercourse happening in every session of the conference led the steady? and positive progress in different branches of Oriental learning. The number of sections also gradually raised to twenty one. It Several awards instituted for the best papers in almost and the sections form a noteworthy feature of this conference.

Finally we sincerely thank the members of the Executive Committee of the 50th session who assigned this task to us. We are also thankful to the local organizing committee at the 50th session, Vice-Chancellor Prof. S. Varkhedi in particular, for announcing the publication of this volume on the occasion of the inaugural function. Our thanks are due to scholars, Prob. Rajani [ha and others who helped in making available to us speeches of some of the General President.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages