Rashtrapati Award winner Suniti Kumar Pathak was a key figure in establishment of India-Tibetan studies at Visva-Bharati.

-by Snehamoy Chakraborty

Suniti Kumar Pathak, a scholar chosen by Jawaharlal Nehru to train the army in Tibetan at Ladakh during the Sino-Indian War, passed away at his Abanpally residence in Santiniketan.

Rashtrapati Award winner and Indologist Pathak was a key figure in the establishment of India-Tibetan studies at Visva-Bharati.

Manabendra Mukhopadhyay, the head of the Bengali department at Visva-Bharati and a researcher on Pathak’s work, said Pathak was one of the foremost scholars on Indo-Tibetan relations, Buddhism and Indology.

“Pandit Nehru had taken Pathak to help the Indian army with translation and training in Tibetan, for strategic reasons during the 1962 war. Later, he sought Nehru’s permission to come back to Visva-Bharati and further pursue a life in academics,” said Mukhopadhyay.

“He was an authority on Tibetan, Pali, Sanskrit, Mongolian, Chinese and Prakrit,” he said, adding that Pathak had extensively travelled on foot in some of the remotest parts of the Himalayas, collecting field notes for his research and the 200-odd books he authored. Click here to read more.