Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna Bhattacharyya Biography 
Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna Bhattacharyya was a Sanskrit scholar from Bengal. He served as the principal of the Sanskrit College between 1876 and 1895. A colleague of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, he played an important role in the Bengal Renaissance and regarded as a cultural figure of Bengal in the 19th century. In 1887, he was conferred the title of Mahamahopadhyay on the occasion of the Jubilee of the reign of Queen Victoria. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences at Budapest. He has also been member of Bengal Asiatic Society, the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, the University of Calcutta, Anthropological Society of Bombay and many more. He died at the age of 70 on 12 April 1906.
This distinguished Sanskrit scholar from Bengal was born on 22 February 1836 in Narit, Bengal. As he belonged to a Kulin Brahmin family of the highest rank, he got the privilege to learn Sanskrit. His father, Harinarayan Tarkasiddhanta, his elder brother Pandit Madhab Chandra Sarbabhauma and his two uncles, Guruprasad Tarkapanchanan and Thakurdas Churamani were eminent Pandits. In 1848, he married Mandakini and the couple had one daughter and three sons. In 1876, he became the principal of the Sanskrit College. During his tenure of 19 years, he introduced Sanskrit Title Examination.
He started a secondary Anglo-Sanskrit school at his native village of Narit. Now this educational institution is known as Narit Nyayratna Institution. Apart from writing a few works, he has also served as an editor of Kavya Prakas, Mimansa Darshan and the Black Yajur Veda. He has played a leading role in developing roads and infrastructure of Narit including tramways, in his native district of Howrah. His eldest son, Manmatha Nath Vidyaratna Bhattacharyya was the first Indian Accountant General of Madras.
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Updated: March 12, 2014
