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by Mrinal Kaul
Professor Baljinath Pandit was born in the year
1916 in a village called Kulgam situated in the
district of Anantnag in Kashmir. His parents
were Pandit Aftabram Pandit and Srimati
Amaravati. He did his primary and secondary
education from a school in his native village
Kulgam. He completed his high school education
at an early age since he was an exceptionally
intelligent boy. Thereafter, he joined Sri
Raghunath Sanskrit College in Jammu and
completed his traditional degrees in Sanskrit
viz. Prajnaa, Visarada and Sastri. He topped the
University of Punjab in Lahore to which his
college was affiliated. Consequently, he also
studied for his B.A. from the same university.
In the year 1946 he earned his M.A. degree and
later his doctoral degree in Sanskrit from the
University of Punjab in Lahore. He also leant
from Pandit Ananda Kak Sastri in Srinagar and
Pandit Kakaram Sastri in Jammu. He was a direct
disciple of Pandit Amrtavagbhavacarya of
Varanasi.
In 1941 he was
appointed as a teacher in the Government Oriental College (rajakiyasamskrta-pathasala)
in Srinagar. He is said to have brought about major changes in the
teaching methodology in the college. It had become difficult for
students in the college to pass their undergraduate examinations
following wrong methodology. With the ardent efforts of Professor
Pandit, all the later students could qualify the examinations
smoothly. He emphasized spoken Sanskrit in college and also
initiated Sanskrit debating competitions.
Subsequently, he
was appointed as a lecturer in Sanskrit at the prestigious Sri
Pratap College in Srinagar. After three years he was transferred
to the Government Degree College in Anantnag district in Kashmir.
Later, he also served as a senior faculty member in the post
graduate department of Sanskrit in Himachal Pradesh University. He
was also a faculty member of the Muktabodha Indological Research
Institute, Maharashtra. He was honored by the president of India
with a certificate of honor as a Sanskrit scholar for his life
time service to the cause of Indology.
Professor Pandit
was the last living Kashmirian Sanskritist who had mastered the
traditional expertise of Saiva schools of Kashmir. He wrote many
books and learned articles in Sanskrit, Kashmiri and English. He
also translated many Saiva texts into English, Kashmiri and Hindi.
His remarkable work was the Svatantryadarpana which very lucidly
explains the basic terminology of Kashmirian monistic Saiva
school.
For more than
thirty years he worked as director of the project on the
Kasmira-saivadarsana-brhat-kosa which was funded by the Ministry
of Education, Government of India. This encyclopedia on ‘Kashmir
Saivism’ was recently published in two volumes by the Ranvira
Sanskrit University in Jammu.
In him Kashmir has
lost the most learned and enthusiastic scholar of Sanskrit
studies. His contribution in the filed of Saivism can never be
disregarded. Pandit Baljinnath Pandit passed away on September 7,
2007.
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