Born :- 04-Sep-1911
Died :- 15-Jun-2001
Place of Birth :- Pathuripada, Banki, Cuttack
Dr. Kunjbihar Tripathy, a leading torch bearer of Odia language and literature, was born in Pathuripada village of Banki in Cuttack district. He had his primary education at Barput Lower Primary School near his village. He graduated in second grade from the Banki-Dampada High School and did his IA at Ravenshaw College. He graduated from Patna University with a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in Sanskrit. He finished first in the first grade in the postgraduate exam. Later, he studied law.
For a few days Dr. Tripathy practiced Law but started his career as a professor of Sanskrit at Ravenshaw College in 1936. He worked in the field of Odia records, inscriptions, scripts and language etc. He authored research papers in Odia, English and Hindi. In 1949, he went to the SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies) University, London for research on Odia language. He was there till 1953. During this period, he worked with Professor A. Master and Professor J. Brough on ‘Early Oriya Inscriptions’.
Based on his work, he received a doctorate degree in 1954 under the title of ‘A study of early Oriya Inscriptions’ from the University of London. The thesis was published as a book title ‘The Evolution of Oriya Language and Scripts’. After coming back to India, he joined as Professor in Sanskrit and Odia at Ravenshaw College. Later on, following his retirement in 1968, he became Professor in the Department of Oriya at Behrampur University, Odisha. He continued to work in the area of philology until his demise in 2001.
Dr Tripathi wrote hundreds of research articles in the areas of philology, linguistics, Buddhism and lexicography. He was an authority on Pali, Prakrit and Brhami scripts. His work has been of crucial importance to the study of Odia language.
The biggest achievement that has come out of his massive work is that, the government of India finally recognised Odia as a classical language in 2014, which goes to show that his work is still relevant and continues to make an impact. Of course, his influence on his students is also phenomenal and he was quite a figure in the colleges in which he taught.
He was honoured with the prestigious Sarala Award and the Sahitya Bisharad Award.
