1807.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 77 



only to admire the erudition of the great oriental scholar, but to 

 respect the perfect character of the Bengali gentleman. 



" I feel quite incompetent to do justice to the many virtues of one 

 who was so universally respected, never having had the advantage 

 of his personal acquaintance ; but it is not the less incumbent on me, 

 representing for the occasion the Asiatic Society of Bengal, to bear 

 its testimony to the exalted merits of the great and good man whose 

 loss, as an honorary member, we have now to deplore. I therefore 

 beg to propose the following resolution on the part of the Council 

 of the Asiatic Society : — 



" That this meeting desires to record an expression of its deep and 

 sincere regret at the death of the Raja, Sir Badhakanta Deva Bahadur, 

 K. C. S. I., an accomplished and distinguished scholar, whose 

 eminent services to the cause of oriental literature during half a 

 century, were, in March 1855, especially acknowledged by his elec- 

 tion as an honorary member of the Society." 



Babu Bajendralala Mitra, in seconding the resolution, said, " It 

 is a source of great satisfaction to me to find that the Council has 

 recommended to the favourable notice of the Society the resolution 

 which you have moved, to commemorate the services of a countryman 

 of mine, and one whom I had the privilege to call a friend for the 

 last five and twenty years. It is in every way worthy of this, the 

 oldest Asiatic Society, which was the first to lay open the store- 

 house of the Oriental classics to the scholars of Europe, and it is 

 worthy of the great man to whose memory it is devoted. Baja 

 Badhakanta is no more ; he is gone to an unknown region of spirits, 

 where human praise can be of no avail to him ; but we do well to 

 express our respect for scholars who, like him, have laboured long 

 and successfully in the field of Indian literature. It is a premium 

 on merit which is sure to promote the object of this Society. 



" The literary life of Baja Badhakanta extends over a period of sixty 

 years. He was born in the year 1784, and early evinced a strong 

 love of reading and of knowledge, and care was taken by his worthy 

 father to provide for him an education befitting his high rank and 

 social position. According to the custom of the time, his first atten- 

 tion was drawn to the Persian and Arabic languages ; but he subse- 

 quently studied most thoroughly the Sanskrit, the English and the 



