Govind Sakharam Sardesai

Govind Sakharam Sardesai Biography

Govind Sakharam Sardesai was an Indian historian from Maharashtra. He was called as Riyasatkar Sardesai. He was born on 17^th May 1865. He wrote the thousand years of Indian history until 1848 in Marathi. He wrote three volumes of New History of Marathas. He received Padma Bhushan award for his historical works in the year 1957 from Government of India.

He was born in the Gowil village of Ratnagiri district in a middle class family. He completed his schooling at Ratnagiri and pursued his higher education in Pune and Maharashtra. He joined the service of Baroda state (Gujarat) in 1889 and later he was appointed as the personal secretary of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III.

He was tutoring the princes at that time. The Maharaja encouraged him to access wide variety of books and historical works from the library and to write several books. He went to U. K., U. S. A., and Europe. He was accompanied by the Maharaja during these visits. He could get a broad outlook through these travels.

He completed eight volumes of Marathi Riyasat, two volumes of British Riyasat and three volumes of Musalmani Riyasat. He retired from his service in 1925 and lived in the Kamshet village in Maharashtra.

He was entrusted with the work of editing and publishing the Peshwa Daftar by the government of Bombay. He examined 35,000 documents in various languages like Modi Marathi, English, Gujarati and Persian and published 45 volumes of Peshwa Daftar. This consisted of 8650 documents.

Together with Sarkar, he published Poona Residency Correspondence that had 7, 193 pages. When he was 80 years old, he wrote The New History of Marathas. He was also called as Govindrao Nana.

Some of his works include Musalmani Riyasat, Marathi Riyasat, Aitihasik Wanshawali, Aitihasik Gharani, Anupuram, Paramanand Kawyam, Majhi Sansar Yatra, etc. He received the title of Rav Bahaddur in 1947, Golden Award with Itihas Martand title at Dhule in 1946, Doctor of Literature by University of Pune and Padma Bhushan Award from Government of India. He died on 29^th November 1959 at his age of 94. 

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Updated: January 03, 2012