Rajendra Lala Mitra
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| Rajendra Lala Mitra | |
| Born | February 15, 1824.svg/25px-Flag_of_the_British_East_India_Company_(1801).svg.png){kind=small} Kolkata, India |
|---|---|
| Died | July 26, 1891 Kolkata, India |
| Occupation | Orientalist |
Rajendra Lala Mitra (February 15, 1824 - July 26, 1891) was an Indian Orientalist born in Calcutta.[1] The son of Janmejay Mitra, the family hailed from Sunra in 24 Parganas. He was pioneer in scientific study of history and contributed substantially in the field of archaeology.[2]
After his schooling in Gobinda Chandra Basak's Free Hindu School, he had joined the Medical College in 1837 but had to give up his studies in 1841 owing to some trouble with Englishmen.[2] To a large extent he was self-educated, studying Sanskrit and Persian in the library of his father. In 1846 he was appointed librarian of the Asiatic Society, and to that society the remainder of his life was devoted--as philological secretary, as vice-president, and as the first Indian president in 1885.[1]
Apart from very numerous contributions to the society's journal, and to the series of Sanskrit texts entitled "Bibliotheca indica," he published three separate works:
- The Antiquities of Orissa (2 vols, 1875 and 1880), illustrated with photographic plates, in which he traced back the image of Jagannath (Juggernaut) and also the car-festival to a Buddhistic origin.[1]
- a similarly illustrated work on Bodh Gaya (1878), the hermitage of Sakya Muni.[1]
- Indo-Aryans (2 vols, 1881), a collection of essays dealing with the manners and customs of the people of India from Vedic times.[1]
He received the honorary degree of LL.D from the university of Calcutta in 1875, the companionship of the Indian Empire when that order was founded in 1878, and the title of raja in 1888. He died at Calcutta on the 26th of July 1891.[1]
