Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri is an Bangladesh-born Indologist and a specialist in Indian epics and Puranas. He is also a writer. In 2012, Bhaduri undertook the large-scale project of creating an encyclopedia of the major Indian epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. The project is freely available online. Due to the difficulty and complexity of the task, it took Bhaduri a decade to conceptualize the project. During the compendium's creation, several Indian journalists stated that the encyclopaedia was poised to challenge many long-held beliefs about the epics.
Bhaduri is noted for his scholarly but simple interpretations of ancient Indian tales, particularly those appearing in the Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. He generally writes in Bengali and has written books like Balmikir Ram O Ramayan, Arjun o Draupadi, Krishna, Kunti Ebong Kaunteyo, and others. For many years, he has been writing essays on Hindu epic characters in Bengali magazines, including Sarodiya issues in Bartaman, Ananda Publishers, Anandamela, Desh, etc. In his book Dandaniti, Bhaduri deals with politics in ancient and medieval India. Bhaduri writes a regular column, Katha Amrita Saman, which is published in Sangbad Pratidin's Sunday supplement issue Robbar. The deity Krishna has been a special interest to Bhaduri. He has written multiple books and essays on the character. In the book Mahabharater Bharat Yuddha Ebong Krishna, he discusses the role of Krishna in the Kurukshetra War.
Encyclopedia project
In March of 2012, Bhaduri began directing a major encyclopedia project intended to compile the Indian epics Ramayana, Mahabharata, as well as the Puranas, which is being sponsored by Bengali book publisherSahitya Samsad and the Netaji Subhas Institute of Asian Studies. Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey of The Times of India has said "The encyclopaedia will challenge claims of certain Indian scholars, who under Western influences have often tried to "sanitise" the character of Krishna. In Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's Krishnacharitra, for instance, Krishna is supposed to not have even a single consort." Jaideep Mazumdar of The Times of India said "the encyclopaedia will shatter the colonial hangover that a lot of the research into our ancient scriptures in recent times have suffered from and will present many historical figures in a new light." Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri was quoted in an interview as saying–
I thought it would be a good idea since all the smaller encyclopedias I came across on the Puranas were incomplete and didn't have proper reference labels. I started poring through the Puranas and making card entries. After some time, I thought I should include the Mahabharata also since the stories in the Mahabharata have a parampara with the Puranas. For instance, names of some kings, conventions and rituals for marriages, childbirth and funerals that are found in the Vedas find mention in the Mahabharata as well. And gaps in the Mahabharata's stories, I discovered, can be filled from the Puranas and the Vedas. And since the story of Ramayana is found in a gist in the Mahabharata, I finally decided that a complete encyclopaedia of the epics and the Puranas is necessary since all these texts and scriptures complement each other.
Though the project was planned long ago, it started only in 2010. According to a report published in The Times of India in August 2012, Debojyoti Dutta, chief of the publication, requested Bhaduri to lead the project. Firstly, they planned to make the encyclopedia on the Mahabharata only, but found it was too difficult to cover only one of the epics. For example, the Hindu epic character Krishna is found in a section of the Ramayana as well. Due to the complexity and difficulty of the project, it took Bhaduri a whole decade to work on the concept alone. Bhaduri received assistance from research scholars at the Netaji Subhas Institute of Asian Studies. The team felt they could finish the project by 2013, but Bhaduri later said – "after going full steam we realised that it is going to be more difficult than we thought. I think we will go well into 2015".
