Biography of Shripad Damodar Satvalekar

(Born: 19 September 1867, Ratnagiri - Died: 31 July 1968)

Shripad Damodar Satvalekar was born on September 11, 1867. He started reading the Vedas when he was only eight years old.

He had an unquenchable desire for Sanskrit and therefore he founded Sanskrit Wagvavdhini Sabha, in which members were bound to interact with each other in Sanskrit. He was very much influenced by Tilak. He urged the youth to come forward and make India independent from foreign yoke. In his speech, he always discussed about national education and 'swaraj

His first book Vedic Rashtriya Geet' was published from Hyderabad. The book infuriated the British officials as it dealt at length about nationalism based on the Vedas. He wrote another essay "Vedic Prathana Ki Tejvasita' due to which he was sentenced to jail for a year. After that, he decided to devote himself solely to the propagation of Veda and founded 'Swadhyaya Mandals'in 1918. He wrote almost 400 books and his famous works include Purushanth Bodhini' and 'Sanskrit.