T. Ganapati Sastri

Who was T. Ganapati Sastri?

Mahamahopadhyaya T. Gaṇapati Śāstrī was a Sanskrit scholar who was editor of the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, and discovered the plays of Bhasa. He was also the principal of the Sanskrit college for some time, around 1903.

While touring Kerala searching for Sanskrit manuscripts, he came across a palm-leaf codex in Malayalam in a village near Trivandrum. Although they carried no name, he deduced based on internal evidence that they were by the same author, and concluded that they were the lost plays of Bhasa. This produced a sensation in the scholarly world, and Ganapati Sastri's work was widely applauded. This has been considered "the most important event in the twentieth century Sanskrit literary scholarship".

He was involved in bringing to light several other Sanskrit works as well. He discovered and edited the Trivandrum edition of the Arthaśāstra in 1924–25, with a Sanskrit commentary by himself. He pointed out that the name was more likely Kauṭalya, which has since been supported by other scholars.

He also wrote Bharatanuvarnana, a history of India.