Dasgupta, Shashi Bhushan, 1912-1964

Shashibhusan Dasgupta, or Shashi Bhushan Dasgupta, Shashibhusan and Shashi Bhusan Das Gupta (17 March 1911 – 21 July 1964) was a Bengali scholar of philosophy, languages, literature (particularly Bengali literature), literary critic, author and theologian. Dasgupta was born in Chandrahar Village in modern Barisal Division, South-Central Bangladesh. He obtained his IA from B M College, Barisal, his BA (Hons) in Philosophy from Scottish Church College, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. His MA in Bengali Language and Literature was from Calcutta University in 1935, and he subsequently joined Calcutta University's Bengali Department as a Researcher. Winning the 1937 Premchand Roychand Studentship due to his scholarship contributions, Dasgupta was appointed in Bengali Department a lecturer, and received his PhD in that department in 1939. Dasgupta's chief opus is the identification of Indian spiritual meditation forms and demonstration of their relationship to Tantric Buddhism, to Saivite, Sakta and Vaishnava religious philosophies, and to Bengali literature. He won the 1961 Sahitya Akademi Award for his work Bharater Shakti-Sadhana O Shakta Sahitya. Dasgupta had authored novels, plays, poems and children's books. Some editions of his works are published posthumously or in recently updated versions, and their exact or cited titles in English depend on the language variants being transliterated.