Haricharan Bandyopadhyaya (1867-1959)

Haricharan Bandyopadhyaya was born in Ramnarainpur in 1867. He worked as a teacher of Sanskrit and later became superintendent of the Patisar office in the Tagore estates. When Rabindranath came to know of this he had his services transferred to the newly founded Vidyalaya at Santiniketan in 1902. Rabindranath had written a first book of reading in Sanskrit for his children. Haricharan completed the graded series of Sanskrita Prabes in three parts.

In 1905, the poet asked him to compile a Bengali dictionary and Haricharan started the work; in between his class work and whenever he could find time, the work of compiling the dictionary became an all-absorbing preoccupation.

In 1944, he was awarded the Sarojini Gold Medal of the Calcutta University. In 1957, Visva-Bharati conferred on him its highest accolade, the Desikottama by Acharya Jawaharlal Nehru who said, "His unwearied pursuit of knowledge fulfils one of the major aims and ideals of Rabindranath and Visva-Bharati."