Gauhati University Landscapes

Statues

It is a pleasure to walk by the number of statues of great Assamese personalities that dot the campus, many of whom were alumni of this university.

Statues of Lakashminath Bezbaroa (left) and Dr Krishna Kanta Handiqui (right)

Rasaraj Lakshminath Bezbaroa (1864-1938), who is person behind the great awakening of the Assamese Society. The existence of today's Assamese language can  truly be attributed to works undertaken by this great visionary and writer who instilled a sense of belongingness in the hearts of Assamese people through his satirical works. He was one of the literary stalwarts of the Jonaki Era, the age of romanticism in Assamese literature.

This statue is erected in his honour in front of the New Academic Building (top most) which also houses, among many other arts and humanities departments, the Assamese Language Department.

The statue on the right is that of Dr Krishna Kanta Handiqui (1898-1982), the great Sanskrit Scholar and the founder Vice Chancellor of Gauhati University (for nine years from 1948 to 1957). Born on 20 July 1898  in Jorhat town of Assam, to Rai-Bahadur Radha Kanta Handique, he was educated at Cotton College, Guwahati (1913–15), Sanskrit College, Calcutta (1915–17), Calcutta University (1917–19), Oxford University, Paris University, and Berlin University (1920–27). He also studied and learned many languages like Latin, Greek, French, German, Russian, Italian and Spanish. He is known to have known 13 languages: 8 European languages and 5 Indian languages including Pali and Prakrit (from Wikipedia). This statue was erected in his honour in front of the Central Library of the university, named after him as KK Handiqui Library.