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Biography

Childhood

His father Ramaswamy Sastri was a sub-registrar in the government

offices at Kolar, Nanjanagud and Chikkaballapur. Ramaswamy Sastri

had 7 children-five sons & two daughters. Srikanta Sastri was the second child. The family's economic situation was bleak for a long time until Ramaswamy Sastri (father) assumed the post of sub-registrar in various government offices. Dr S.Srikanta Sastri's mother Seshamma passed

away in his childhood. This meant that his upbringing was predominantly done under the influence of his grandmother. This was relevant given the fact that his grandmother was a reservoir of hundreds of Sanskrit hymns, which she would recite about as she went on with her day to day chores. Young Srikanta Sastri was witness to this, all through his childhood and probably developed a love for Sanskrit therein. He was initiated into

Brahmin hood with the Upanayana which was done in his 14th year.              

Owing to his father’s frequent transfers, young Sastri had to switch several schools. While in Chikkaballapur, he passed his

lower secondary exam in the year 1915. He cleared his matriculation (SSLC) while his father was

working at Kolar and had particularly impressive scores in subjects such as Biography and Economics. Post-matriculation he attended the entrance exam at Bangalore and gained admission to a course in Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) at Maharaja’s College, Mysore.

He passed B.A. in 2nd class and then went on to pursue a course in Master of Arts (M.A.) in History.

University of Mysore

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Education

He was tutored at college under the likes of J.C.Rollo, H.Nanjundaiaha,

Sri B.M.Srikantaiah, Prof V.L.D'souza (English faculty); S.V.Krishnaswamy Aiyangar  (Political-science), S.Krishnarao (Greek history); N. Subba Rao (Economics); Prof S.V.Venkateswara (History); Dr R.Shamasastri and

Dr M.H.Krishna (Ancient History).

After finishing his M.A. in History, he successfully passed the F.C.S exam under the British Administration, but was not selected as he was deemed unfit based on health grounds. He would go on to author many works in Kannada and English of significant historical interest in his later years. Quite a few of them still continue to serve as hallmarks in their respective fields. His scholarly erudition earned him respect from fellow intellectuals at home as well as abroad.