Kolte 8212; an academician par excellence

NAGPUR, April 9: With the death of Dr Vishnu Bhikaji alias Bhausaheb Kolte, eminent litterateur, best known for his pioneering research in ...

NAGPUR, April 9: With the death of Dr Vishnu Bhikaji alias Bhausaheb Kolte, eminent litterateur, best known for his pioneering research in quot;Mahanubhavquot; literature, the region has lost one of its most illustrious sons in the literary and academic field.

Padmashree awardee and former vice-chancellor of the Nagpur University, Kolte was a multifaceted personality. An academician, Marathi writer, critic and researcher par excellence, he wrote as many as 21 books, many of them based on quot;Mahanubhavquot; literature and edited 15 books and about 20 copper plates and stone inscriptions in Marathi, Prakrit, Marathi and Kannada languages.

He was held in the highest respect for his pioneering work in the field of quot;Mahanubhavquot; literature. quot;Mahanubhavquot; Pandits did a lot of significant prose and poetry writing during the period between 13th and 16th century. These manuscripts were however originally written in a lesser known code language. Kolte decodified and critically edited them for the first time, with exhaustiveintroductions. His monumental work in the field won him the title of quot;Vidyaratnaquot; in 1956, conferred by the All India Mahanubhava Parishad.

Among the books written by him include Mahanubhava Tatvadnyana 1945, Mahanubhava Achardharna 1948, Mahanubhava Sanshodhana two volumes 8212; 1962, 1984, Pracheen Marathi Sahitya Samshodhana 1968 and Chakradhar Shevatache Prakaran 1982.

Among the 15 books he edited are Uddhav Geeta 1935, Rukmini Swyamvar 1940, Sthan Pothi 1937, Leela Charitra 1978, Shishupal Vadha 1960, Sri Govind Prabhu 1994 and Vachaharan 1953.

His monumental work was on how to simplify Marathi orthography. He abolished all the unpronounceable cumbersome nasal sounds in the language.

Kolte was born on June 22, 1908 in Narvel, district Buldana, a son of a Satyashodhak farmer. He had his school education in Malkapur and Khamgaon and his BA from the erstwhile Morris College, Nagpur VasantraoNaik Institute of Arts and Social Sciences. He stood first in the MA Examination of Nagpur University in 1931, bagging three gold medals.

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Retiring as the principal of the Morris College, he earlier was an assistant professor of Marathi with Vidarbha Mahavidyalaya, Amravati and also with Morris College. Till 1972, he was active in the academic world. He was a member and later chairman of the Board of Studies in Marathi, a member and later dean, faculty of Arts, a member of Academic Council and the Executive Council of the Nagpur University and also of the Board of Studies and the faculty of arts of four other universities.

Interestingly, his first book Lavhali 1933, was a collection of poems. He has also written a play, collection of critical articles on Sanskrit and Marathi books and authors and two literary biographies 8212; Sri Chakradhar 1952 and Bhaskarbhatta Borikar 1935.

The vast corpus of his writings includes over 250 research articles covering essays, published lectures, critical prefaces,translations and commentaries on classical texts as well as contemporary writings.