Indian Society for Buddhist Studies

Author(s): Prachya Vidyapeeth
Publisher: Prachya Vidyapeeth

Page 84

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Contributions of Bhikshu Jagdish Kashyap to Buddhism
Meenu Verma, Jammu
Bhikshu Jagdish Kashyap was one of the greatest scholars of Buddhism whose contribution to its development and revival in India is very vast. He was one of the three great Buddhist monks produced by modern India, the other two being Mahapandita Rahul Sankrityayan and Bhadant Ananda Kausalyayan. He was born as Jagdish Narain in 1908 at Ranchi in Bihar. He passed the Matriculation examination from Ranchi Zila School in 1925. He completed his B.A examination from the Patna College in 1929. Then he went to Varanasi and passed the M.A examination in Philosophy from the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and also did second M.A in Sanskrit from there.
After completing his M.A he wanted to do Doctoral work in Buddhist philosophy. His Arya Samaji Guru, Ayodhya Das and a renowned as well as famous philosopher of Kashi, Bhagwan Das encouraged and suggested him to study Pali Tripitaka in original. As a result, he became interested in learning this language and wrote a letter in Sanskrit to the Vidyālaṁkāra Pariveņa in Sri Lanka and expressed his desire to go there to study Pali in order to revive a lost tradition in India. He got the permission from his parents and went to the Vidyalaṁkāra Pariveṇa in Sri Lanka in November 1933. In 1934, he was ordained into the Sangha by the Venerable L. Dhammananda Nayaka Maha Thero of the Vidyalankara Parivena and thus Jagdish Narain became a fullfledged monk named Bhikshu Jagdish Kashyap. The greatest and significant contribution of Bhikshu Jagdish Kashyap towards the revival and propagation of Buddhism in India was the establishment of Nava Nalanda Mahavihara and his great as well as authentic work of the Devanagari edition of the Pali Tripitaka in 41 Volumes. He was a great scholar of Pali who dedicated his entire life for the cause of Buddhism and its development in the mainland of India.