Jagdish Kashyap
Bhikkhu Jagdish Kashyap is a Master and Buddhist translator . It was born in 1908 in Ranchi, in the State of Bihar, in India; he died on January 28th, 1976. Its name of birth was Jagdish Narain, and the name Kashyap (or Kashyapa, or familiarly Kashyapji) was given to him to its ordination bhikkhu in 1933.
University formation
-
BA (license) with the College of Patna, 1929,
- MY (control) be philosophy - Hindu University of Bénarès, 1931,
- MY be Sanskrit - Hindu University of Bénarès, 1932.
Biography
After having finished its controls, Jagdish Kashyap wished to do a doctoral work in Buddhist philosophy. One advised to him for that studied the Pāli, and it with this intention decided to go to Sri Lanka, with the great distress of his parents; those accepted finally its departure, and in 1933 Kashyapji joined Vidyalankara Pirivena (which nowadays is the university of Kelaniya). It was ordered by the worthy L. Dhammananda Nayaka Mahathero. During its stay in Vidyalankara Pirivena, it translated the Digha Nikāya into Hindi.
On the way for a voyage to Japan, it was stopped in Malaysia by the police force, because of its participation in the movement of not-co-operation of Gandhi. It finished finally its stay by one year with Penong, where it learned the Chinese, lived in a Vihara Chinese, and published a whole of conferences.
In 1936, it returned to Sri Lanka to live there in a hermitage, in a forest, in order to practice the meditation, thing far from common for a bhikkhu at that time - if not very common makes of it that its Masters tried from of to dissuade it; but Kasyapji continued all its life to practice the meditation. Towards the end of 1936, it turned over to India, and in 1937 settled with Sarnath where it was implied in an erudite work and the translation, mainly the translation of the gun pāli in Hindi. In Sarnath, it was sharpened with the Mahabodhi Society (the Buddhist main organization of India at that time), and took part quickly in the organization of the company and its social action. He became the headmaster of a new college rested by the general secretary of Mahabody Society, Devapriya Valisinha. During its time with Sarnath, he also persuaded the Hindu University of Bénarès to offer courses of pāli, course which he gave free, making even from time to time with foot the way of 36km separating Sarnath and Bénarès.
During this time, Kasyapji taught during some nine months with a young English monk, Sangharakshita, in residence at his place. Sangharakshita, which founded thereafter the Western Buddhist Order in 1968, regards Jagdish Kashyap as an important Master, as well from a spiritual point of view as secular.
In 1947, India having become independent, there was at the Indians a new direction of identity. In 1949, Jagdish Kashyap made the turn of the country of its ancestors, the old province of Magadha, which was also the center of old Buddhism; the name even of the State de Bihar comes from the presence from very many will viharas Buddhist, in the past. For the first time after many centuries, of the villagers of Magadha transfer a bhikkhu out of dresses oranges, and were agreeably astonished to note that he spoke their local dialect, the Magadhi. People of the country had for a long time forgotten their own history, and Kasyapji could provide many details of it: it could specify the true identity of the images of Buddhas and Bodhisattva S which was adored as Hindu gods or local deities. It was as in measurement, by quoting passages of the texts in pāli, to show as Magadha is still closely related to the language magadhie.
After this visit, Jagdish Kashyap proposed to teach the pāli at the university of Gaya and the university of Nâlandâ, in Bihar-Sharif. Later, when the government of the State de Bihar decided to found an institute of studies pālies in Nâlandâ, its choice, for the direction of the project, was made in an obvious way on Jagdish Kashyap. In 1951, this institute became Nava Nalanda Mahavihara.
1956 were the year of the 2.500ème birthday of the Parinirvana of the Buddha, that the Indian government celebrated under the name of Bouddha Jayanti . Within the framework of the celebrations, the work of Kasyapji to publish a version in Devanagari gun pāli was accepted like official project, and was jointly ordered by the government of Bihar and the government of India. The first volumes appeared in 1956, at the time of the Jayanti Buddha, and the continuation appeared gradually during the five years which followed - an enormous work of marathonian on behalf of Kasyapji. At one moment, it sold its house to pay the wages of the workmen who made the publication, thus mitigating the delay of the official payments.
During the project of the Jayanti Buddha, Jagdish Kashyap turned over to Varanasi and, in 1959, was invited to be the first professor of pāli and Buddhism at the university sanskrite of Varanasi. It remained there until 1965, where it returned in Nâlandâ to be one second time director of Nava Nalanda Mahavihara. It took its retirement in 1973. It had already started to be diabetic, and became seriously sick in 1974; it spent its two last years confined to bed, with the Japanese temple of Rajgir, from where it could see the Pic of the Vultures and the Pagoda of lately built peace. He died in 1976.
References
- D.C. Ahir. The Pioneers off the Buddhist Revival in India , Sri Satguru Publications, Dehli, 1989.
Works translated into French
- the dhamma of the Buddha , translation Fuenta, Adyar Editions, Paris, 1947.