वा. वि. मिराशी
V. V. Mirashi (1893–1985), Vasudev Vishnu Mirashi, was the Indologist and Sanskrit scholar whose readings of inscriptions and coins rewrote the early history of the Deccan. Born in Kuwale, in Devgad taluka of Ratnagiri district, he was schooled in Kolhapur, took his B.A. in Sanskrit at Deccan College, Pune, in 1914 and his M.A. in 1917, qualified in law, and earned a University of Bombay Ph.D. on the Dharmasutras, the metrical Smritis and Hindu law that won the Vishwanath Mandalik Gold Medal.
After a spell at Elphinstone College in Mumbai he joined Morris College, Nagpur, as Sanskrit lecturer in 1919 and became its principal in 1942. He was principal of Vidarbha Mahavidyalaya, Amravati, from 1947 to 1950, and from 1957 to 1966 honorary professor of ancient Indian history and culture at Nagpur University, where he was also Dean of Arts, and guided the Vidarbha Samshodhan Mandal from its beginning.
His editions of the stone and copper-plate inscriptions of the Vakatakas, Kalachuris, Shilaharas, Satavahanas and Western Kshatrapas, his studies of coinage, the volumes of Studies in Indology and Literary and Historical Studies in Indology, and his work on Bhavabhuti and on Kalidasa, whose Meghaduta he showed was composed at Ramtek, appeared in Marathi, Hindi and English. He was honoured as Mahamahopadhyaya and received the Padma Bhushan in 1975.
