Czech Indologist Jaroslav Vacek passes away

Czech Indologist Jaroslav Vacek passes away KOZHIKODE: Renowned Czech Indologist Jaroslav Vacek, 73, who had been under treatment following a head injury sustained in a fall on January 2, 2016 during a visit to Kozhikode, passed away at his home on Monday. The Czech Embassy in New Delhi announced this in a Facebook post on Tuesday. Vacek, who had served as director of the Institute of South and Central Asian Studies at the Charles University in Prague, was the first to translate the Bhagavad Gita from Sanskrit to Czech. He had received the 'Presidential Award for Classical Tamil' from President Pranab Mukherjee in October 2013. He had come to Kozhikode to attend a Sanskrit seminar organised by the Calicut University when the mishap occurred. Sanskrit scholar C Rajendran, a long-time associate and friend of Vacek, said the death was a great loss to the field of Indology in Europe.

"We are all the more saddened as the mishap that lead to his death took place in this city which he loved so much. He had visited the city four times. He had awed the audience by speaking in fluent Tamil at a programme organised by Tamil Sangham here," said Rajendran.

He said that Vacek was the key figure in the revival of interest in Sanskrit and other Indian languages in many European universities. For the last 15 years he had been studying the symbolism of nature in classical Indian literature under an international project involving multiple universities.