Sanskrit Vedanta is the on-line learning centre of the Pundit Purushottamshastri Phadke Sanskrit Pathshala. The Pathshala – which means a school of learning– was established by Mr. Neelakanth Phadke on Saraswati-Pujan day – October 6, 2019, in memory of his late father, a renowned Sanskrit grammarian & Vedanti from Ratnagiri, India.
Having studied Sanskrit in both the traditional Pathshala system, as well as the modern university system, Mr. Phadke truly believes that the knowledge gained through the traditional system is unparalleled.
While the concept of the Pathshala was brewing for a while, the definitive trigger was Mr. Phadke’s visit to Brazil in July 2019 to teach Sanskrit at Mr. Jonas Maseti’s Vishwa Vidya. He also addressed the students of Mrs. Gloria Arieira’s Vidya Mandir at Rio de Janeiro.
Seeing hundreds of young people keen on studying Sanskrit and Vedanta in Brazil, Mr. Phadke decided to start online coaching for other such keen students eager to learn Sanskrit all over the world.
His father, Pundit Purushottamshastri Phadke’s lifelong wish of his son furthering the cause of Sanskrit education is being fulfilled with this project.
Pundit Purushottamshastri Phadke was born on May 1, 1915 in Kurdhe, Ratnagiri district. His father was a Rigvedi priest who had to cut short his Vedic studies due to the untimely death of his father. Hence he wanted all his five sons to be experts in various fields of Vedic – Sanskrit studies. Accordingly, his second son – Purushottam – was sent to Ratnagiri’s Sanskrit Pathashala at the age of 11 to become a Sanskrit Pundit. The Acharya in Ratnagiri’s pathashala was Pundit Digambarshastri Joshi Kashikar. He was a great Pundit, expert in various branches of Sanskrit studies like Nyaya, Vyakarana, Meemansa, Vedanta etc. Phadkeshastri studied for 15 years with his guru and became Vyakaranacharya from Varanasi. He also studied Nyaya, Meemansa, Vedant and Dharmashastra from his teacher.
After his guru became a Shankaracharya of Sankeshwar Peeth (under Shringeri Peeth), Phadkeshastri became the Acharya of Sanskrit Pathashala in 1947. He was also a Sanskrit and Hindi teacher at Phatak High School, Ratnagiri, and taught Sanskrit classes to Masters students at R P Gogate College at Ratnagiri. Apart from regular teaching, Purushottamshastri gave thousands of lectures on various topics – mainly on Geeta, Upanishads, Yogavasishtha etc. He authored two books – one on Yogavasishtha and another on Upanishadas.
Pundit Phadkeshastri was not a drab Sanskrit Pundit. He not only played chess and contract bridge, but also taught these games to so many students. He took keen interest in Cricket as well as lawn tennis. He would invariably watch major games like Cricket world cup and Wimbledon.
He was a living example of vedantic studies, always calm and detached from worldly possessions. He almost lived hundred years (died on 24-4-2015) and he was fully active till the age of 98. He led an amazing life with a spotless reputation and he was a guide to thousands of his students of all age groups.
Neelakanth Purushottamshastri Phadke started his Sanskrit studies under his father since the age of 5 and completed his masters in Sanskrit (being topper in Sanskrit papers) from Pune University in 1976. Owing to the introduction of 3 language formula (mother tongue, national language Hindi & English) in school curriculum, since Sanskrit found no place in that formula, jobs in the Sanskrit field vanished gradually. Hence, although he loved Sanskrit tremendously, he had to shift away from Sanskrit.
He worked for a few months with the Maharashtra State government as a Sales Tax Officer. In 1980, he was selected as an officer in the General Insurance Corporation of India, through an All India Competitive examination. He worked for 3 years – from 1987 to 1990 – in the New India Assurance Co. Ltd.’s Tokyo Branch. He learned Japanese language during his stay in Japan. Later he was an advisor to a Japanese non-life insurance company – Sumitomo Marine & Fire Insurance Co. Ltd. from 1996 to 2003. He promoted a company Nipun Insurance Brokers Pvt. Ltd. in 2003 and another company – Nipun Investment Pvt. Ltd. in 2006. He continues to be the chairman of both the companies.
Mr. Phadke has got a zest for learning new things. He took admission at the age of 35 for doing fulltime MBA at the International University of Japan in 1990. At the age 61, he wrote a common admission test for admission to Law degree course and secured admission at one of India’s top law schools- ILS Law college, Pune. Having successfully completed his law course in 2019, he feels that there is some common thread among Sanskrit grammar, investment studies and law.
He has been in continuous touch with Sanskrit. He has been teaching Sanskrit to anyone interested in learning the language even while working in various jobs. He translated an encyclopaedic work in Sanskrit – Manasollas – in Marathi to celebrate his father’s 100th birthday. It is a very difficult book to translate with more than 8000 verses on diverse fields. In memory of his father, on his 2nd death anniversary, he wrote another book on Sanskrit Grammar in Marathi in 2016.
Mr. Phadke continues to remember thousands of Sanskrit Subhashitas, many Stotras, Bhagavadgeeta, Panini’s Ashtadhyayi and many other Sanskrit works which he had memorized while studying Sanskrit with his father. His online students will have the benefit of his ‘Parinataprajna’ – matured intellect with his vast knowledge from different fields of studies.