THE THIRD EDITION of P.K. Gode’s Bibliography fittingly titled Thirty Years of Historical Research was published in 1947. Its two sections titled Select Opinions (prior to 1941 and 1941 - 1946) are excellent testimonies — from India, China, Italy, France, England and Argentina — that reveal the impact of Gode’s service to Sarasvati. Here are a few notable excerpts:
The way in which Indian dates depend on one another and the shifting sands of conjecture on which the history of Sanskrit literature is based, makes one specially welcome a type of effort which slowly builds up the future edifice of literary history brick by brick of materials that will last. This is Mr. Gode’s contribution.
To young students of Indian history the booklet will prove invaluable… if it leads them to a study of the listed articles to learn from them how much of India’s long buried history can be brought to life again by painstaking and critical Research.
You have done a great deal in the cause of Indology; and I cannot but congratulate you on your excellent and epoch-making contribution to Indian chronology. (Italics in the original)
I did not suppose that you had written a whole library! I have received your 88 papers and now read in your letter of 16-5-46 that your publications amount to 300.
I read carefully through your Bibliography. The range and depth of your researches are really remarkable. Your note on Kavindracarya’s Library in the Jagadvijaya Chandas had given me some idea of your studies on the dates and personalities of authors. But the extent of your work on these subjects came as a pleasant surprise to me.
I had no conception of what amount of useful and scientific research work you are carrying out in the small cabin of your house and the institution situated in a quiet corner in Poona.
While many teaching professors of good repute even could be procured to a university…there could be only one Prof. Gode secured to a Research Institute of the type of the Bhandarkar Institute.
Even as Muni Jina Vijayi and Vishva Bandhu Shastri began publishing Gode’s collected papers as independent volumes, a parallel development had occurred. Legions of his admirers, well-wishers, friends and disciples had formed something called the Prof. Gode Collected Works Publication Committee. They began raising funds to publish the entire corpus of his works. It was chiefly led by J. R. Gharpure, R. N. Dandekar, A. D. Pusalker and N. A. Gore. At a later date, the Committee roped in C. Kunhan Raja and the scholarly phenomenon known as Dr. V. Raghavan for fund-raising activities. P.K. Gode and Raghavan were for long, scholar-brothers to borrow his own term.
Donations poured in from all quarters — big and small. Notable benefactors included the Adyar Library, Indian Institute of World Culture, Vasudeva Sharan Agrawala, Kuvalayananda Swami, P.V. Kane, K.K. Handiqui (former Vice Chancellor, University of Gauhati), K.V. Rangaswami, V. Raghavan, S.K. Belvalkar, Louis Renou, S.D. Satvalekar, A.N. Upadhye, Mrs. Sophia Wadia, Raja Shamaraj and Prafulla Chandra Bhanj Deo.
In 1960, the Professor P.K. Gode Commemoration Volume was published under the editorship of H.L. Hariyappa and M.M. Patkar.
Thus, from 1953-1961, the complete works of Parashuram Krishna Gode were published in seven volumes. It was a spontaneous and heartfelt outpouring both of profound camaraderie and Gurudakshina.
Gode did not live to witness the publication of the last two volumes.
PARASHURAM KRISHNA GODE concludes his preface to the fifth volume of Studies in Indian Cultural History as follows:
"When Vol. VI of my studies will be published after a year or so, a major part of my research output of about 4000 pages will be in a book-form. The publication of the papers not included in these Volumes will require about Rs. 20,000/. If Providence comes to my help I may be able to bring out some volumes of these papers. In the meanwhile I have published a complete Bibliography of my 474 papers…I have also to thank not only all the scholars in India and outside, who have contributed articles to this Volume but others who have helped me in my research work during the last 43 years."
Little did Gode know that that would be his final note of gratitude.
On May 27, 1961, Gode wrote a letter to his dear friend, Vishva Bandhu Shastri in which he discussed some points about the publication of the upcoming volume of Studies in Indian Cultural History. It reached Hoshiarpur two days later. Even as the letter was in transit, the doctors had declared at 11:20 A.M., 28 May, 1961, that Parashuram Krishna Gode had departed from the mortal world. He had been admitted to the hospital the previous night owing to chest pain. However, his heart had betrayed him in the end.
He departed just two months short of his 70th birthday.
This is the opening line of Vishva Bandhu Shastri’s foreword to the aforementioned volume: “A most pathetic interest attaches to the publication of this volume in that its learned author passed away within twenty four hours of his having addressed his last letter in connection with it to the present writer.” The irony couldn’t be crueller.
The same volume in which Vishva Bandhu Shastri had written his heartfelt obituary to Gode had been dedicated to him.
PARASHURAM KRISHNA GOKHALE ranks as one of the brightest stars in the galaxy of the New Indian Renaissance. It was a rank he did not aspire for. In fact, he aspired for nothing. He carried out his Dīkṣā like a true Karma Yogi — immersed, yet detached. When fame came to him, he accepted it and used it as an opportunity to reiterate the ideal behind the reason it had come to him — his devotion to Sanatana Dharma.
Unfortunately, there is next to no information about his personal life. We only know that his wife’s name was Smt Kamalabai to whom he has lovingly dedicated the second volume of his Studies in Indian Cultural History. Likewise, lively and interesting anecdotes related to him are conspicuous by their absence. What we do know is that he was a lifelong patient of severe Asthma, like how P.V. Kane suffered from an excruciating stomach ailment.
Of all the luminaries of the New Indian Renaissance that I have surveyed, P.K. Gode ranks first for the sheer absence of personal biographical details. It is almost impossible to get a feel for P.K. Gode as a person. It is curious to note that none of his contemporaries have recorded these facets of his life. If they have, that record has not survived.
As it stands, it appears that the biography of P.K. Gode is just the biography of his astounding scholarly legacy, which is inspiring, invaluable and immortal.
The fact that Gode had earned the respect, goodwill and affection of giants like P.V. Kane, V.S. Sukhtankar, Jadunath Sarkar, D.C. Sircar, G.S. Sardesai, and Suniti Kumar Chatterjee is a self-evident distinction of his eminence.
There is and will be no one like Parashuram Krishna Gode.
|| Om Shanti ||
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