Former chief secy and Jagannath scholar, Subas Pani passes away

A distinguished bureaucrat, scholar, and a leading cultural voice of Odisha, Subas Pani, who passed away here on Monday, embodied a rare fusion of administrative acumen and deep cultural vision.

- DIANA SAHU @Bhubaneswar

He was 76.

Pani was silently battling cancer for the last few years. A former chief secretary of Odisha, he was a much-respected voice on the state's culture and an authority on Jayadev's Geeta Govinda and Jagannath Culture.

Born on February 17, 1949, at Jeypore, Pani was an ardent devotee of Lord Jagannath. Deeply grounded in empirical research of different aspects of Jagannath Culture and Geeta Govinda from an early age, he had pursued a PhD in Jayadev's Geeta Govinda.

While Pani authored many books on Jagannath Culture and Odisha's heritage, two of his most important works in Odia language were 'Sampoorna Geeta Govinda' and 'Daru Brahma'. In fact, 'Sampoorna Geeta Govinda' continues to be one of the most comprehensive introductions to Jayadev's classic, and provides word-by-word meanings and translations of all ashtapadis and shlokas in the tome.