Edward James Rapson (Author)
Professor Edward James Rapson (1861-1937) was born at Leicester and was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was placed in the first class of the Classical Tropos in 1883. He read Indian languages from Edward Cowell, the first Professor of Sanskrit in Cambridge and was awarded the Brotheron Prize for Sanskrit in 1884 and was placed in the First Class of the Indian languages Tropos in 1885. In 1887 he became a Fellow of St. John’s College. In the same year he briefly served as an Assistant Librarian to the Indian Institute at Oxford and joined the British Museum as an Assistant in the Department of Coins. In 1906 he was elected to the Chair of Sanskrit at Cambridge and a fellowship at St. John's College. As a Professor of Sanskrit, for almost thirty years, Professor Rapson imparted training to a number of students who, in course of time, have contributed enormously to Indian studies. He was particularly thorough in Kharosthi as is evident from the three volumes of Kharosthi Inscriptions discovered by Sir M.A. Stein in Chinese Turkestan of which the first two volumes (1920 and 1927) he edited in collaboration with A.M. Boyes and E. Senart and the third volume (1929) jointly with P.S. Noble. Besides, he also published Catalogue of the Coins of the Andhra Dynasty etc., Ancient Indian and edited Vol. 1 of the Cambridge History of India 91922) in which he also contributed three chapters. He contributed a number of papers on numismatics in various journals and his contribution in this field is of permanent importance. In recognition of his outstanding work the school of Oriental Studies offered him the Volume of Indian Studies with contributions by scholars from all over the world.
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