RADHAKANTA DEB.
Raja Sir Radhakanta Deb will always be remembered as a promoter of learning, both Sankrit and English, and as a public man who honestly endeavoured to render useful services to his country. He was born in 1784 in the Sobhabazar Raj family. He is the son of Raja Gopimohon Deb, and great-grandson of the founder of the family Maharaja Nabokissen, who played an active part in politics when Lord Clive and Warren Hastings governed Bengal. Radhakanta received his English education at the Calcutta Academy, and learnt Sanskrit and Persian from Pandits and Moulavis. He then devoted his whole activities to the dissemination of knowledge. The greatest work of his life is the Sabdakalpadrum an excellent and encyclopedic Sanskrit dictionary, which will always remain a monument of his profound scholarship. It was much appreciated both in India and in Europe, and even elicited the praise of Her Majesty the Queen, who was pleased to award a gold medal to him.
While he did such signal service to Sanskrit learning, he was not unmindful of the great benefits which would accrue to his country from the spread of English education. He was a staunch supporter of David Hare in his endeavours to establish schools all over the country. He was a director of the Hindu College and became the Secretary of the School Society when it was established in 1818, in both of which capacities he worked hard for education.
But his educational efforts were not confined to males alone. He jealously advocated female education, but held that education at home, in accordance with the Shastras, was more conformable to the girls of this country than a system of school education.
In religion he was the leader of the orthodox Hindus. When Raja Ram Mohan established the Brahmo Samaj, Radhakanta headed the Anti-Brahmo movement and established an association to protect the orthodox religion. Though an advocate of progress in one direction viz. the educational, he
