GUWAHATI, July 20 - The Krishna Kanta Handiqui State Open University organised an online memorial lecture to commemorate the birth anniversary of the legendary indologist and scholar KK Handiqui on Monday, stated press release.
The scholar extraordinaire, KK Handiqui, was the bridge between traditional Indian Sanskrit studies and modern European scholarship. It appears that Prof Handiqui might have developed an interest in Russian language and literature while living in Berlin and Paris in the 20s of the last century. Perhaps, in this context, he had also been influenced by three persons � Mohamed Barkatullah, an old Indian professor; Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, an expatriate Indian and a brother of poet Sarojini Naidu; and Hasan Shaheed Suhrawardy, an Indian Muslim. This was mentioned by indologist Prof Sergei Dmitrievich Serebriany on Monday.
Prof Serebriany, Director of EM Meletinsky Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, delivered the lecture on �India and Russia: Revisiting the Problems and Issues of Cultural relations�.
In his lecture, Prof Serebriany also threw light on how KK Handiqui brought around 2,000 books from Berlin, Paris and Oxford. He also mentioned about the cultural exchanges between India and Russia in different times in history.
The memorial lecture began with the university anthem. The welcome address was given by Prof Kandarpa Das, the Vice Chancellor of the university. Prof Das in his address reiterated the importance of the KK Handiqui Memorial Lecture that the university has been organising since its inception in 2007 to commemorate the birth anniversary of the legendary indologist and scholar KK Handiqui on July 20.
Founder VC Prof Srinath Baruah released the university newsletter Horizon.
