Acknowledgementsthe games on this site are a playable Festschrift: a volume made in honour of a scholar, made of games

Prof. (Dr.) Prasannanshu

Made in honour of

Prof. (Dr.)Prasannanshu

प्रसन्नांशु

In Sanskrit, prasanna is clear and serene, and aṁśu is a ray of light.

Linguist · Scholar of law · Poet · Teacher

गुरुर्ब्रह्मा गुरुर्विष्णुः गुरुर्देवो महेश्वरः ।
गुरुः साक्षात् परं ब्रह्म तस्मै श्रीगुरवे नमः ॥

The teacher is the maker, the keeper and the transformer. The teacher is the highest truth made visible. To that teacher, I bow.

Works of literature turned into games, and offered to the teacher whose lectures changed our lives and set our minds free.

What he gave usPlay the games

What he gave us

His lectures changed our lives

सा विद्या या विमुक्तये

That alone is knowledge which sets us free. (Vishnu Purana)

The rest of this page sets out what he knows. It matters more to say first what his teaching did.

I

He changed how we read

We came believing the law lived in statutes. His lectures showed us that it lives in language: in a parable, in a poem, in one carefully chosen word. We have not read anything the same way since.

II

He lifted us higher

He asked more of us than we thought we had, and then waited until we found it. The level we stand on now is one he saw before we did.

III

He set us free

Free of the fear of a difficult text. Free of the borrowed opinion. Free of the idea that law and literature are two subjects, and that a lawyer needs only one of them.

An anthology that carries his Hindi poems is called Saajhi Udaan, a shared flight. That is what his classroom was.

And he gave us Tagore

Through him we met Tagore, and Tagore’s prayer for a mind that is free:

চিত্ত যেথা ভয়শূন্য, উচ্চ যেথা শির

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free …
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Rabindranath Tagore · Gitanjali, 35

Tagore asked for that freedom as a prayer. In these lectures it was handed to us as a habit.

A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame.
Rabindranath Tagore

His has never gone out.

We did not leave his lectures with notes.
We left with a different mind.

The scholar

One mind, five elements

He began with zoology and arrived at law, by way of linguistics, two European universities and three decades of poems.

8university degrees
7countries studied, taught or lectured in
14fields on his visiting card
11books on the shelf below

And besides: a postgraduate diploma in marketing, postgraduate certificates in forensic science and in sports and science journalism, a course in the Urdu script, and another in art and culture.

पृथ्वीEarth

Science

What can be weighed and examined.

  • B.Sc. (Hons.) Zoology, University of Delhi
  • Forensic Science: shared first position in the University
  • Clinical and neurolinguistic research
जलWater

Language

What flows between people.

  • Linguistics
  • Neurolinguistics and Psycholinguistics
  • Clinical and Anthropological Linguistics
  • Forensic Linguistics
  • Endangered Languages
  • Name Studies
अग्निFire

Law

What tests, and tempers.

  • Law and Jurisprudence
  • Law and Language
  • Law and Literature
  • Law and Culture
  • Law and Poetry
  • Linguistic Justice
वायुAir

Poetry

What is carried on the breath.

  • Thousands of poems, in English and in Hindi
  • Broadcast by All India Radio
  • Founding President, Delhi Poetry Circle
  • Founder of the poets’ group P3
  • Plays, stories, essays, interviews
आकाशEther

Teaching

The element that carries sound.

  • Communication, public speaking, writing
  • Eight courses created for students of law
  • Doctoral supervision
  • Faculty development, in India and abroad

His own website ends with a page called Beyond: earth, water, fire, air, ether. His learning sorts itself the same way.

Offices and honours

The titles, in full

Set down without abbreviation, as they deserve.

Offices held

  • Professor, National Law University, Delhi
  • Director, Centre for Linguistic Justice and Endangered Languages
  • Dean, Open and Distance Learning
  • Project Coordinator, Study and Research towards Preservation and Promotion of Indigenous and Endangered Languages
  • Visiting Professor, Université Paris Nanterre, France
  • Visiting Professor, Università del Piemonte Orientale, Italy
  • Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Edinburgh
  • Member, Publication Committee, Linguistic Society of India (2018–20)
  • Founding President, Delhi Poetry Circle

Laurels

  • British Academy Visiting Scholar, for The Politics of Names and Naming in India
  • Erasmus Mundus Scholar of the European Union, European Masters in Clinical Linguistics
  • Proposed the English course outline for the first Curriculum Development Committee of the Bar Council of India, 2010
  • Received his doctorate at a convocation attended by Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
  • Shared first position in the University of Delhi in Forensic Science
  • Listed in the Limca Book of Records, 1993 and 1994
  • Honourable Mention, Humanitas International Poetry Contest, Canada
  • Prize for poetry, Culture Council, University of Delhi
  • Life Member, Linguistic Society of India and Dravidian Linguistics Association
  • Life Patron, Indraprasth Literature Festival

The road

A scholar is honoured everywhere

विद्वत्त्वं च नृपत्वं च नैव तुल्यं कदाचन ।
स्वदेशे पूज्यते राजा विद्वान् सर्वत्र पूज्यते ॥

Learning and kingship are never equals. A king is honoured in his own country; a scholar is honoured everywhere.

Each stop is thanked in its own language. Edinburgh is thanked in Gàidhlig, for a scholar who works to keep endangered languages alive.

The lighthouse

He opened our eyes

अज्ञानतिमिरान्धस्य ज्ञानाञ्जनशलाकया ।
चक्षुरुन्मीलितं येन तस्मै श्रीगुरवे नमः ॥

I was blind in the darkness of not knowing. With the salve of knowledge he opened my eyes. To that teacher, I bow.

A lighthouse does not walk the road for anyone. It makes sure the harbour can be seen. He keeps one: Professor’s Lighthouse, on YouTube

The shelf

Books with his name on them

A study of language breakdown in Hindi, readings for students of law, an edited volume in three languages, and poems.

Courses he built for students of law

Find him

Every door that leads to him

These open in the browser and need a connection. Everything else on this page works offline.

Dedication

In his own words, and then in ours

“I am just a conduit between my teachers and students.”
Prof. (Dr.) Prasannanshu, on his website

विद्या ददाति विनयम्

Learning gives humility.

We stand at the far end of that stream, and what follows is what reached us.

गुरु गोविन्द दोऊ खड़े, काके लागूँ पाँय ।
बलिहारी गुरु आपने, गोविन्द दियो बताय ॥

Teacher and God both stand before me: whose feet do I touch first? Yours, my teacher, for it was you who showed me God. (Kabir)

Kafka’s man from the country finds a doorkeeper standing before the Law, hears not yet, and waits on a stool until his life is spent. Kafka’s messenger carries a word meant for one person alone, and never clears the palace.

We were more fortunate than Kafka’s people.

At our gate stood a teacher, and what he said was come in. The message he carried, that the law is built of words and must be read before it can be practised, did reach us. It arrived in a classroom, by way of the poems, plays and parables he chose for students of law.

These games are our reply. Whatever in them is clear is owed to his teaching; whatever is clumsy is ours alone.

With gratitude and deep respect,Vikas Goyankahis student

← Back to the games