Rakhaldas Banerjee

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Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay(1885-1930) was an Indian historian and a native Indian pioneer in the fields of Indian archaeology, epigraphy and palaeography and a literateuran Indian historian, was Manindra Chandra Nandy Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture at the Banaras Hindu University. He is famous as the discoverer of Mahenjodaro, the principal site of the Harapa culture.

[edit] Life

Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, was born on 12 April 1885 in Berhampore of Murshidabad district to Matilal and Kalimati. Rakhaldas graduated from Presidency College with Honours in History in 1907 and obtained his MA in History from the Calcutta University in 1910.

Rakhaldas joined the Indian museum in Calcutta as an Assistant to the Archaeological Section in 1910. He joined the Archaeological Survey of India as Assistant Superintendent in 1911, and was promoted to the rank of Superintending Archaeologist in 1917. He then joined the Banaras Hindu University in 1928 and held the post till his premature death in 1930.

[edit] Professional career

His first major independent professional work was in the fields of palaeography and [epigraphy]]. He won the Jubilee Research Prize of the Calcutta University for The Origin of the Bengali Script published in 1919 (and reprinted in 1973). Rakhaldas was the first to study the proto-Bangla script, as the original form of Bangla script. He wrote the classic historical works on medieval Indian coins, and the standard works on Indian iconography of Indian art, in particular Gupta sculpture and architecture. His best known work was "Eastern Indian Medieval School of Sculpture," published posthumously in 1933.

But he is most famous for the discovery of Mahenjodaro, the principal site of the Harapa culture dating from 3000 BC. His interpretations of this civilisation were published in a number of articles and books: "An Indian City Five Thousand Years Ago" (Calcutta Municipal Gazette, November 1928); "Muhen-jodaro" (in Bangla, Basumati, 1331 BS); Prehistoric, Ancient and Hindu India (posthumously published, 1934) and Mahenjodaro - A Forgotten Report (1984).

Rakhaldas wrote two textbooks for Calcutta University, viz., History of India (1924) and A Junior History of India (1928). His The Age of the Imperial Guptas (1933) is a collection of lectures delivered by him in 1924. He wrote the standard two-volume history of Bengal in Bangla, and the two volumes on the History of Orissa, one of the first attempts at writing a scientific history of Bengal.

Many of his Bangla-language novels — including Shashanka, Dharmapala, Karuna, Mayukh, Asim, Lutf-Ulla, Dhruba, Pasaner Katha, Anukrama, Hemakana — were also translated in other Indian languages.