Hindi Scholars Launch Jesuit Linguist's Birth Centenary

September 10, 2009) Hindus outnumbered Christians to celebrate the birth anniversary of Father Camille Bulcke, a Jesuit missionary who gave common people easier access to religious texts of both communities. Father Bulcke made Bible stories and the great Hindu epic Ramayana easy for common people to understand, said Nalini Purohit, a scholar in the Hindi language, on September 1. The date marked the birth centenary of Fr Bulke. Around 2,000 people, mostly Hindus, attended two functions in Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand state, held for the occasion. St. Xavier's College and the Camille Bulcke Research Centre, both based in Ranchi, jointly organized the events. Father Bulcke, a Hindi scholar, died in New Delhi in 1982 at the age of 73. He was born at West Flanders, Belgium, but spent most of life in Ranchi after arriving in India as a Jesuit seminarian in 1935. He became an Indian citizen in 1951. His doctoral thesis "Ram katha utpati aur vikas" (Ram's story: origin and development) is considered one of the best commentaries on the Sanskrit-language Ramayana. Other popular works include a Hindi translation of the Bible that Church in northern India still use and a 40,000-word English-Hindi dictionary published in 1968. According to Jesuit Father Mathias Dungdung, director of the Camille Bulke Research Centre said that the scholarly priest respected and studied all religions. His contributions to Hindi made him more popular among Hindus than among Christians.