Year of Establishment : 1907
History of the department : Pali bing one of the classical languages of India played significance role in partnership between India and South, South-East and East Asian countries for long period. Considering the importance of Pali in the cultural interaction in the part of Asia the University of Calcutta with its excellences in the area of learning had introduce Pali for the first time in India as an independent subject at the post graduate level for which teaching arrangements were already made on a small scale by the University authorities as early as in 1907. The Department of Pali which originated from this humble beginning was set up in an organized form in 1907. Although Pali as a language was included in the course of study prescribed for the M.A. Examination with effect from 1889, it was in the year 1901 that Mr. Satish Chandra Vidyabhusan, Professor of the Sanskrit College, Calcutta, offered himself as the only candidate fore M.A. Examination in Pali. During the subsequent years the famous polyglot Sri Harinath De appeared in 1906 for the M.A. Examination in Pali. The renowned ideologist Professor Dr. T.W. Rhys Davids agreed to act as the Paper setter and Examiner in all the six papers of the said Examination. The importance of the Pali Studies at the Post-Graduate level was fully appreciated by Sir Asutosh Mukherjee, the then Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta. From 1925 when at the recommendation of the Executive Committee the post of a Professor was created in the Department of Pali, Dr. Beni Madhab Barua was appointed as the first Professor of Pali, the Department achieved distinction and prominence. During the ten years of his service as a Professor, the Department of Pali was enriched and increasingly expanded through the acquisition of higher research degrees by some of the members of the Teaching staff of the Department of Pali and through the requisition of the services of some distinguished teachers of the departments of Asian Indian History and Culture, Sanskrit and Comparative Philology.
University Professor of Pali :
Head of the Department :
Teaching support :
Major activities :
Campus : College Street
Address for communication : 3rd Floor, Room No.45, Asutosh Building, 87/1, College Street Kolkata - 700 073. West Bengal