: विष्णु भिकाजी कोलते) (1908- 1998) was a Marathi

Marathi people

The Marathi people or Maharashtrians are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, that inhabit the Maharashtra region and state of western India. Their language Marathi is part of the southern group of Indo-Aryan languages...

 writer and researcher of old Marathi literature

Marathi literature

Marathi literature is the body of literature of Marathi, a Sanskrit-derived language spoken mainly in the Indian state of Maharashtra and written in the Devanagari script.-Early Marathi Literature :...

. He hailed from Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.

Life

Kolte was born on June 22, 1908 in Narwel in Malkapur taulka of Buldana district of Indian State of Maharastra. His father was a farmer and a member of Satyashodhak Samaj

Satyashodhak Samaj

Satya Shodhak Samaj is a religion established by Mahatma Jyotirao Phule on September 24, 1873. This was started as a group whose main aim was to liberate the social Shudra and Untouchables castes from exploitation and oppression....

.

Kolte received his school education in Malkapur and Khamgaon

Khamgaon

Khamgaon is an industrial town and an emerging corporate tehsil in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra, India. Khamgaon used to be the largest trading centre for cotton in Asia.-Geography:...

. He received his B.A. from Morris College in Nagpur

Nagpur

Nāgpur is a city and winter capital of the state of Maharashtra, the largest city in central India and third largest city in Maharashtra after Mumbai and Pune...

, and M.A. from Nagpur University, securing three gold medals.

Kolte started his professional career as an assistant professor of Marathi at Vidarbha Mahavidyalaya in Amravati

Amravati

Amravati is a city in the state of Maharashtra, India and the seventh most populous metropolitan area in Maharashtra. It is also the administrative headquarters of the Amravati district...

 and then Morris College in Nagpur

Nagpur

Nāgpur is a city and winter capital of the state of Maharashtra, the largest city in central India and third largest city in Maharashtra after Mumbai and Pune...

. He moved on to be the principal of Morris College. At Nagpur University, he became a member, and later chairman, of the Board of Studies in Marathi; a member, and later dean, of the faculty of Arts; and a member of the Academic Council and the Executive Council. He retired as the vice-chancellor of Nagpur University. He was also a member of the Board of Studies and the faculty of Arts of four other universities.

Kolte presided over Vidarbha Sathiya Sangh and Maharashtra Bhasha Sabha. He was a member of the general council of Sahitya Akademi

Sahitya Akademi

The Sahitya Akademi ', India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India...

, New Delhi

New Delhi

New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

 during 1956-1961.

Scholarly Work

Kolte did pioneering work in the field of Mahanubhava

Mahanubhava

Mahanubhav- Hindu sects in maharashtra mainly in amaravati district started by Chakradhar Swami in 1267. Chakradhar Swami propagated a religious movement as well as social movement, in which all were accepted irrespective of their castes and the traditional ritualistic religion was...

 literature.

He researched about 20 ancient copper plates and stone inscriptions in Marathi

Marathi language

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...

, Prakrit

Prakrit

Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...

, and Kannada languages. He decoded literature of Mahanubhav pandits, which they had written in an obscure code language in the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th century. He wrote exhaustive introductions to his books about the researched literature.

For Kolte's scholarly book on Leela Charitra

Leela Charitra

Leela Charitra is a biography of Shri Chakradhar Swami, the guru of the Mahanubhava sect, and is a sacred text of that sect. It was written in the late 13th century by his follower Mahim Bhat. It is the earliest known written work of Marathi literature....

, the first known biography in Marathi

Marathi language

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...

, the All India Mahanubhava Parishad conferred on him in 1956 the title Vidyaratna.

Kolte authored a book on simplification of Marathi orthography

Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...

. He was President of Marathi Sahitya Sammelan

Marathi Sahitya Sammelan

Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan is a conference for literary discussions by Marathi writers. Though the conference has sometimes been held in a town outside the Indian state of Maharashtra, it is typically held annually in one of the towns in Maharashtra where Marathi is the mother tongue...

, the conference on Marathi Literature held at Bhopal in 1967.

Authorship

Kolte's writings include over 250 research articles and over 20 books. The following is a partial list of the books which he authored:

• Lavhali (A collection of poems) (1928)
• Marathi Santon Ka Samajik Karya (Critique) (1935) (in Hindi
  Hindi
  Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
  
  )
• Bhaskar Bhatt Borikar: Charitra Va Kavyavivechan (Critique) (1935)
• Swastik (A collection of poems) (1937)
• Mahanubhava Tatvadnyan (1945)
• Mahanubhava Achardharma (1948)
• Shri Chakradhar (Literary biography) (1952)
• Mahanubhav Sanshodhana in two volumes (1962 and '84)
• Sahitya Sanchar (Essays) (1965)
• Pracheen Marathi Sahitya Sanshodhan (Essays in Hindi) (1968)
• Chakradhar Shevatache Prakaran (1982)
• Marathi Asmitecha Shodh (1989)
• Snehabandh (Essays) (1994)
• Giriparna (Essays)

Editorship

The following is a partial list of over 15 books which Kolte edited:

• Uddhav Geeta (1935)
• Sthan Pothi (1937)
• Rukmini Swayamvar (1940)
• Vachaharan (1953)
• Shishupal Vadha (1960)
• Leela Charitra
  Leela Charitra
  Leela Charitra is a biography of Shri Chakradhar Swami, the guru of the Mahanubhava sect, and is a sacred text of that sect. It was written in the late 13th century by his follower Mahim Bhat. It is the earliest known written work of Marathi literature....
  
  (1978)
• Shri Govind Prabhu (1994)

Honors

Kolte was honored with a Padma Shri

Padma Shri

Padma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan...

 title by the Government of India in 1991.

A Sahitya Akademi Fellowship

Sahitya Akademi Fellowship

The Sahitya Akademi Fellowship is a literary honour in India. Awarded by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, to the "immortals of literature," and limited to twenty one individuals at any given time, it is the highest literary honour conferred by the Government of India...

was conferred on him in 1994.