Anundoram Borooah award to Keshavanda Deva Goswami

GUWAHATI, June 11: The Anundoram Borooah Award Committee of the Anundoram Borooah Institute of Language, Art & Culture (ABILAC), Assam, has decided to confer the Anundoram Borooah Award for the year 2014 on noted scholar litterateur and an expert on Sankardeva studies, Dr Keshavanda Deva Goswami, stated a press release.

This was decided in a meeting of the Executive Committee of ABILAC, which also acts as the Award Committee, under the Chairmanship of Prof. Ashok Kumar Goswami, the Vice-Chairman, Governing Council and Chairman, Executive Committee of ABILAC. The prestigious award will be given away at a ceremony to be held towards the end of 2015 at Guwahati.

The award was instituted by the Anundoram Borooah Institute of Language, Art & Culture (ABILAC), Assam in the year 1991 to perpetuate the hallowed memory of Anundoram Borooah, the great Sanskrit scholar and civil servant to be bestowed every year on a scholar who sets high standards of excellence in the sphere of scholarship, especially in the fields of Sanskrit and allied Indological studies, literary and linguistic studies and studies in art and culture.

From the year 1991 this prestigious award has been presented to fifteen scholars. The past recipients of this award are Rajanikanta Deva Sarma (1991), Acharyya Manoranjan Shastri (1992), Dr.Biswarayan Shastri (1993), Birendra Kumar Phukan (1994). Dr Praphulladatta Goswami (1995), Sri Jajneswar Sarma

(1996), Dr. Herambakanta Barpujari (1997), Dr. Satyendrath Sarma (1998), Dr. Jogeswar Sarma (1999), Dr. Mukunda Madhava Sharma (2000), Dr. Golock Chandra Goswami (2001), Dr. Jogendrarayan Bhuyan (2006), Dr. Pramod Chandra Bhattacharyya (2007), Dr. Harith Sarmadaloi (2011) and Bhadanta Sasanbansa Mahathera (2012)

Professor Keshavanda Deva Goswami will be the 16th recipient of the Award. Prof Goswami started his career as Lecturer in Assamese in A.D.P College, gaon and retired as Professor and Head of the Department of Assamese from Dibrugarh University. He also worked as Saint Sankardeva Chair Professor in Patiala University, Panjab for a period of one year in 1974. After retirement he associated himself with various tiol and intertiol organizations. He has to his credit around forty books in Assamese and five books in English of high academic standard. Some of the remarkable works in Assamese by Prof. Deva Goswami are Pitha Rahasyam(1951), Chitralekha, Dusuti Mukhar Ghai, rakasur Vadha, Amrit-manthan, m-ghosa, Satra Sankriii Rup Relcha, Ankiya Bhao and Katha Kirtan.

The award comprises of Rs One Lakh in cash, a citation and a shawl.