Sandhya Vandanam

P. Seshadri, A Great Linguist And Scholar, Was Born In Kerala. After Passing His B.A. And M.L. Examinations He Began His Career First As A School Teacher And Then As A Sub- Registrar. His Innate Love For Learning Different Languages Arose Out Of His Desire To Learn At First Hand The Great Classics Of Various Languages In Their Original. Thus, He Learnt Bengali To Read All The Writings Of Swami Vivekananda, Marathi To Read Jnaneshwari, Greek To Read Marcus Aurelius And Epictetus, German To Read GoetheS Translation Of KalidasaS Sakuntala, Russian To Read TolstoyS War And Peace As Well As French, Finnish And Polish To Read Masterpieces Written In Those Languages. He Had Also A Mastery Over The Different Regional Languages Of South India. But His Proficiency In Bengali - Both Spoken And Written - Was So Great That He Could Hold A Bengali Audience Spell- Bound By His Learned Discourses In That Language; And The Late Shri C. Rajagopalachari Chose Him To Translate His Mahabharata In Bengali. He Also Translated It In Malayalam And Helped Rajaji To Render It In English From The Original Tamil. Indeed, Shri Seshadri Was A Linguist Par Excellence. It Was Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar (The Then Dewan Oftravancore State) Who Recognized The Innate Worth Of Shri Seshadri. Hearing That Such A Great Linguist And Scholar Was Languishing As A Sub-Registrar, He Commissioned Him To Translate Into Malayalam Such Classics As Meditations Of Marcus Aurelius, MontaigneS Essays And PlutarchS Lives, As Also For Writing An Original Commentary On Bhagavad Gita, With The Interpretations Of Sankara, Rarnanuja, Sri Aurobindo And Lokamanya Tilak. Sir C.P. Then Appointed Him As The Superintendent Of Travancore UniversityS Department Of Publications. In His Later Years, Shri SeshadriS Talent And Scholarship Were Utilised By The Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, For Translating Into Malayalam The Great Works Of Some Bengali.