Prabhakar Bhanudas Mande

Prabhakar Bhanudas Mande was a scholar of folklore, folk culture and Marathi literature. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2023 in the field of literature and education, from Maharashtra ^[1].

Teacher and professor

Mande was born on 16 December 1933 ^[2]. He started as a teacher at a government school in Pishor, Aurangabad district, in 1955, and joined Shri Shivaji College, Parbhani, in 1961 ^[2]. He earned his PhD in 1967 with an analytical study of folklore ^[2]. He spent 17 years as a reader at Marathwada University, and by the time he retired in 1993 he was a senior professor ^[2].

Collecting folk traditions

He gathered thousands of folk songs and hundreds of folk tales, and wrote about folk arts, the lives of folk artists and the way they carried culture and tradition ^[2]. His books include Gawgadya Baher, Ramkathechi Maukhik Parampara and Lokrangbhoomi, several of them honoured by the Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad ^[2].

Folklore in the university

Folk literature was not taught at postgraduate level until Marathwada University added it in 1973 ^[2]. Mande drew up the syllabus and wrote textbooks for it, and other universities in Maharashtra followed ^[2]. He founded a folk literature research centre for young scholars and organised about 50 annual seminars in Maharashtra and Goa ^[2]. He presented papers at conferences in India and abroad, and received a DLitt from Marathwada University in 1991 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award ^[2].

Mande died on 21 December 2023 at a hospital in Ahmednagar, aged 90 ^[3].