Birbal Sahni
The renowned paleobotanist, Birbal Sahni, was born on 14 November 1891 at
Shahpur district, now in Pakistan. He was the third son of Ishwari Devi and
Lala Ruchi Ram Sahni. He studied at the Government College, Lahore and
Punjab University and graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1914.
After completion of his education, Birbal Sahni came back to India and
worked as professor of botany at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi and
Punjab University for about a year. In 1920, he married Savitri Suri, who
took an interest in his work and was a constant companion.
He studied the fossils of the Indian subcontinent. He was the founder of
Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow. Palaeobotany is a subject
that requires the knowledge of both botany and geology. Birbal Sahni was the
first botanist to study extensively about the flora of Indian Gondwana
region. Sahni also explored the Raj Mahal hills in Bihar, which is a
treasure house of fossils of ancient plants. Here he discovered many new
genus of plants.
Birbal Sahni was not only botanist but also a geologist. By using simple
instruments and his huge knowledge of ancient plants, he estimated the age
of some old rocks. He showed to the people that the salt range, now in
Pakistan Punjab, is 40 to 60 million years old. He found that the Deccan
Traps in Madhya
Pradesh were of the tertiary period, about 62 million years old. Moreover,
Sahni took a keen interest in archaeology. One of his investigations led to
the discovery of coin moulds in Rohtak in 1936. He was awarded the Nelson
Wright Medal of the Numismatic Society of India for his studies on the
technique of casting coins in ancient India.
Being a teacher, Sahni first raised the standard of teaching at the
Department of Botany. Sahni died on the night of 10 April 1949, less than a
week after laying the foundation stone of his institute. The Institute of
Palaeobotany was the first of its kind in the world. His wife completed the
task he had left undone. The institute is today known as the Birbal Sahni
Institute of Palaeobotany.
Comments
Post a Comment