Sushil De was born in
Calcutta in 1890. His father Satish Chandra De was a state surgeon, posted at
Cuttack, Orissa, where he did his schooling at the
Ravenshaw Collegiate School. In 1912, he completed his law degree from the
University Law College, but instead of practicing, he joined as a lecturer in English at Presidency College and later at Calcutta University. In 1921, he did his D.Litt. from the University of London (School of Oriental Studies) with a thesis on rhetoric (
alaMkAra) in Sanskrit poetry. He also studied linguistics at the
University of Bonn. He was well known in Oriental study circles, and was elected General President of the All-India Oriental Conference, 1949. A fellow of the Royal Astatic Soctety of Great Britinm and Ireland (1954), he edited the
Udyoga Parva (1940) and
Drona Parva (1958) volumes in the Critical Edition of the Mahabharata from the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. At the same time, he was also active in
Bangla literature, publishing a volume of Bangla sonnets
Dipali, focusing on physical love (1928), and
prAktani (1934) on characters from classical Sanskrit literature. He was president of the
Bangiya Sahitya Parishad (1950, 1956), and also wrote several popular translations of Sanskrit tales.
Works • Bengal Literature in the Nineteenth Century (1919) • Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics (Two parts, 1923, 1925) • the prose kAvyas of daNDin, subandhu and bANa (1941) • Early History of Vaisnava Faith and Movement in Bengal (1942–1986) • • Dinabandhu Mitra (1951) • Bangla Prabad (Bangla Proverbs) (1952) • Nana Nibandha (Bangla Articles), (1953) • Ancient Indian erotics and erotic literature (1959) • Some Problems of Sanskrit Poetics (1959) • Sanskrit Poetics as a Study of Aesthetics (1963) Critical editions from manuscripts: • Padyavali of Rupa Goswami (1934) • Meghaduta of Kalidasa (1959). ==References==