The Amar Chitra Katha comic 'Madhvacharya' was published by the wonderful Anant Pai. Dr.B.N.K. Sharma (1909 - 2005) had rendered the script and the illustrations were by H.S.Chavan. Anant Pai was known for choosing the right people for his book projects and he could not have got anyone better or greater than Mahamahopadhyaya Dr.B.N.K.Sharma (Bhavani Narayanrao Krishnamurti Sharma).
The Amar Chitra Katha comic 'Madhvacharya' was published by the wonderful Anant Pai. Dr.B.N.K. Sharma (1909 - 2005) had rendered the script and the illustrations were by H.S.Chavan. Anant Pai was known for choosing the right people for his book projects and he could not have got anyone better or greater than Mahamahopadhyaya Dr.B.N.K.Sharma (Bhavani Narayanrao Krishnamurti Sharma).
BNK was born to Lakshmi Bai and B.S.Narayan Rao. He happens to be the great grandson of Cochi Rangappachar (1820 - 1891) who was a great man of letters and the Rajaguru of the Cochi Durbar in Tripanitura. BNK descends from the famed Haritasa Gothra ancestry of Singanallur (Coimbatore). His ancestor from the paternal side was Dharmaraja Bhattaru - a convert to Dvaita fold by His Holiness Sri Kambalu Ramachandra Thirtharu of the Vyasaraja Mutt. His maternal lineage included Cochi Madhvacharya, the Asthana Vidwan of Cochi Durbar. B.N.K. Sharma was married to Hemalata and they led a long and fruitful married life. They were blessed with Dr.Sudhindra K.Bhavani and Vibha Srinivasan. BNK could see his great grand child during his autumnal years and it was a life well lived.
Coimbatore has had several icons who have put her on the map of the world. However Dr.B.N.K.Sharma is a rare scholar who needs to be introduced once again as a Coimbatorean who has done much for Sanskrit and Vedanta. His residence Rangadham was located in Raja Street, Coimbatore. He was one with Coimbatorean roots and had spent a lot of time all over the country. For the ones who are interested in Indian Philosophy and Vedanta in particular needs to be indebted to Dr.B.N.K.Sharma. His restoration of Madhava's rightful place in the whole scheme of thought has added to the goodwill created by Swami Vivekananda and others. In all he had published more than 150 papers.
Dr.B.N.K. Sharma was endowed with a sharp intellect and acumen. His analytic ability and research coupled with a superb writing style in English made him endearing to everyone. B.N.K.Sharma (BNK) had done his early education in Kumbakonam and this was followed by B.A (Hons) and M.A from Presidency College (Chennai). It was in Sanskrit and the special subject had been Comparative Philosophy y (Indo European). BNK was greatly influenced by his teacher Kuppuswamy Sastri, M.Rama Rao and Vayyur Srinivasacharya. He was trained by Sathyadhyana Tirtha of Uttaradi Mutt in the art and technique of winning debates. BNK began writing research articles on Dvaita Philosophy from the age of 22 years. His first academic stint was at Annamalai University (Chidambaram) in 1931. Thereafter he became the Principal of Government Sanskrit College in Thiruvayaru (Thanjavur). He had a stint at the Vishweshwaranand Vedic Research Institute (Hoshiarpur - Punjab) as a research scholar before moving to Udupi as the Principal of Purnaprajna Sanskrit College in 1950. BNK served as Principal of Kanara (now Baliga) College of Arts & Science (Kumta) and then moved on to Dharwad as Honourary Professor of Sanskrit at K.E. Board's College (JSS now). Ultimately he migrated to Mumbai in 1953 as the HOD (Head of the Department) of Sanskrit at Ruparel College (Mahim).
Mumbai and D.G.Ruparel College introduced BNK to the philosophical world in India and abroad. Thanks to D.M.Tilak, his student of Inter Arts Class in the college (who happened to be a publisher by profession) to bring out the first edition of BNK's Magnum Opus - A History of Dvaita School of Vedanta & Its Litrerature, in 2 volumes. This work bagged the Central Sahitya Academy Award for Sanskrit Research in 1964. His other academic recognitions include - Mahamahopadhyaya from Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, Vyasa Pitha Prasasthi, Vyasa Madhva Seva Prasasthi, Motilal Banarsidas Centenary Award, Maharashtra State Literary Conference Award and Sri Raghavendra Anugraha Prasasthi.
BNK was highly appreciated and recognized by His Holiness Vishwesha Tirtha of Pejawar Mutt, Udupi, R.R.Divakar - Former Governor of Bihar and Chairman of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, Prof Jose Periera - Forth University in Bronx at the USA, Prof Stafford Betty - Dept of Religion & Philosophy from the California State University and Prof Karl. H. Potter - Chief Editor of Encylopaedia of Indian Philosophies among many others. His noteable students include Prof C.S.Venkateswaran, Prof K.T.Pandurangi, Dr.D.N.Shanbag and his son Dr.S.K.Bhavani.
This Mahamahopadhyaya loved listening to Carnatic music. His family deity was Lakshmi Venkatesha. He had three sisters. B.N.K. Sharma loved to learn languages and was in touch with international philosophers of repute. Lecture tours were part of his life. His nephew C. N. Madhavan has inherited a lot of literary traits from him. Of course, it goes without saying that the son Dr.S.K. Bhavani is a great scholar. BNK was the Vidyaguru, friend, philosopher, mentor and guide for his son. The truly blessed soul had seen his great grandson Suyash, the son of the grandson Purandar (son of Dr . S. K. Bhavani and Lakshmi). The great grandson Suyash had performed a Kanakabishekham for his great grandfather Dr.B.N.K.Sharma.
" My uncle used to be at Rangadham in Coimbatore and I used to discuss a lot with him. We used to argue and debate endlessly. A number of important people had been his guests at Mumbai. My aunt Hemalatha hails from the Myleripalayam Jagirdar family and her brother Swami Chidananda Saraswathi (1916 - 2008) succeeded Swami Sivananda as the President of, Divine Life Society (Rishikesh). Uncle's marriage had been a grand affair in Chennai. They had served food on a full plantain leaf for everyone and I had been a child at that time. My mother Subadra Bai used to often jocularly state that I had made a mess by sitting and eating from the centre of the huge leaf," stated the nephew and author C.N.Madhavan. The affectionate scholar Dr.B.N.K. Sharma used to call his nephew as ' Scholar Maadhu '.
The great scholar had secured his PhD from the University of Madras (1948) and his D.Litt was from the Bombay University ( 1966 ). His entire life was spent on researching, lecturing and writing about the philosophy of the great teacher Madhvacharya. BNK was a sincere student of Presidency College and he had been attracted to the works of Keith, Macdonell, Schrader and Radhakrishnan. He admired their captivating style, but was dismayed to see that they did not do justice to the philosophy of Madhvacharya. They did not seem to be ready to accept Madhvacharya as a great philosopher. Thereafter BNK took many years and quite a number of qualitative works to give Dvaita Philosophy as propounded by Madhvacharya its due recognition. He was virtually an Encyclopaedia of Dvaita Vedanta and he emerged as the foremost scholar in Vedanta. His works are acclaimed as trend setters in neo Vedanta research. Several institutions including the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan have published his works.
BNK's works include the English rendering of Jayatirtha's Nyayasudha, English translation of Madhva’s rightful Bhagavadgita Bhashya, Lectures on Vedanta, Philosophy of Sri Madhvacharya, Madhva’s rightful teachings in his own words, Satyam Eva Jayate, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad from Madhva’s rightful perspective, Catusutribhashya of Sri Madhva with two unpublished commentaries. The great contribution of BNK is his three volume publication of the commentaries on the Brahmasutras by the three acharyas - Adi Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva. His work has been aptly described as one which goes beyond previous works of modern scholars on the subject such as Thibaut, Ghate and Radhakrishnan in scope and detail.
The internationally acclaimed Sanskrit scholar was proficient in Sanskrit (Devanagari & Nandi Nagari scripts) and Ardha Magadhi. If a jury is asked to decide the foremost scholar of Dvaita Philosophy in the recent times, they would unanimously choose Dr.B.N.K.Sharma. "In his works Dr.Sharma juxtaposes all relevant portions of other schools of thinking side by side with Dvaita portion on the same topic," stated N.S.Chakrapani. Dr. Sharma was given to simple ways of living. In a small drawing room, he would sit on an old sturdy wooden chair with a wooden plank across the chair arms and that was his writing table. He was ever active and excelled many youngsters in this regard. His outstanding quality was his listening ability. BNK was very careful before he would conclude on any matter. It was no easy matter to discuss with him. One had to do all his homework. He would despise those ' who talk with a knowing air around them'.
The article ' Impact of Sanskrit on Tamil Literature ' by Dr.B.N.K. Sharma is quite thought provoking. This article was presented in 1982 in ' The Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society '. He states that ' It is now philosophically fully established that the Dravidian family of languages is basically different from the Sanskrit language and its offshoots, in its phonetic and morphological structure, the bulk of its vocabulary, prosody and forms of literary expression and has attained a status of its own of which its members today are legitimately proud. The origin of Dravidian languages, their early growth and stages of dispersion into cognates are still vague. They are complicated by the riddle of their relation to the speech of the Harappans and Mohenjodarians and the ethnic identity of the people of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and their language. Next to Sanskrit, among the cultivated Dravidian languages, Tamil possesses the earliest datable poetic literature, rich in quality and varied and copious in extent. It does not however, cover the normative or abstract sciences, logic, philosophy and other domains, for which it has depended entirely on Sanskrit sources. It is however curious that ancient Tamils failed to make use of numerical signs or figures or give them place values, - one of the most epoch making discoveries of Sanskrit mathematicians bequeathed to the world of science and struggled instead with alphabetical signs given arbitrary numerical values without place value.'
BNK's work on Brihadaranyaka Upanishad highlights the Yajnavalkya Maitreyi dialogues and particularly Maitreyi's persistent questioning which finally leads Yajnavalkya to pronounce that Brahman is realizable. He had studied the six systems of philosophy and this had helped him to write in an animated and crystal clear manner. BNK was a man of sound principles, profound scholarship, solemn purpose, serious concern, cool judgement, studious habits and a simple way of life. His approach and humility can be seen in his Preface to the Brahmasutras - "The Philosophical world has been waiting since then for similar light to be thrown on the wider differences in thought and interpretation which separate the third principal interpreter of the sutras: Madhva from his two illustrious predecessors in the field. I have tried to fill the gap to the best of my ability, without waiting indefinitely for the ideal person to do the work." Dr.B.N.K.Sharma is also known as ' NAVINA TIKACHARYA ' by his contemporaries. He is among the greatest of Madhva scholars in the last few centuries.