Department of Odia

Year of Establishment: 1944

Since the establishment of Ravenshaw College in 1868, Odia was being taught by Sanskrit Pundits. In 1920 Post Graduate Department of Odia, which opened in Calcutta University with the financial assistance of the then Maharaja of Subarnapur State, was led by Sri Bijoy Chandra Mazumdar, Pandit Nilakantha Das, and Pandit Binayak Mishra. Ravenshaw College introduced UG course in Odia in 1944. PG course was introduced in 1946 under the stewardship of Prof. Artaballava Mohanty, an eminent Sanskrit and Odia scholar. And finally in 1968 Sanskrit & Odia Department got separated. Department of Odia Language and Literature came into existence.  Among the famous Odia scholars who have taught in the Department are late Prof. Karunakar Kar (linguist), late Prof. Kunja Bihari Dash (folklorist), late Prof. Kunja Bihari Tripathy (Philology), late Prof. Golak Bihari Dhal (Phonetics) and late Prof. Janaki Ballava Mohanty (Bharadwaja). The Department offers UG, PG, M. Phil, Ph. D. & D. Litt programmes. The department  strives to further research in Odia Language and Literature through computer applications in Odia.  The Department’s library has around 2700 rare books besides 40 numbers of rare and old palm leaf manuscripts. The Department publishes an annual journal and has published special issues on gitikabita, bhashatattva, drama, modern Odia poetry, rasatattva, and Odia literary criticism. The Department also has a rare collection of photographs of Odia literarians, historians, artists, musicians, and freedom fighters of Odisha.