Padma Shri for Mysuru’s Sanskrit Scholar Dr. Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat

Mysore/Mysuru: Four personalities from France will receive Padma Shri awards this year, the highest from any foreign country. The move underscores the strength of India-France relations and the announcement of the Padma awards coincided with the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron in India, who was the chief guest at the 75th Republic Day parade.

Those from France who have been chosen for the honour include 87-year-old Dr. Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat, a Sanskrit scholar dedicated to advancing Indian culture studies. A resident of Yadavagiri in Mysuru, Dr. Filliozat conducts research in several fields of Indology, Sanskrit grammar (Vyakarana), poetry and poetics, Tantra, especially the Sanskrit literature of Shaivasiddhanta school, history of Indian architecture and temples. 

He has published over 20 books and numerous articles in French, English and Sanskrit on Panini’s grammar, Patanjali’s Mahabhasya, Shaivagamas, temple architecture in Hampi, etc.

Born in 1936 in France, Dr. Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat  is a Professor of Sanskrit (Emeritus) and Member of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres in Paris. 

The other French recipients of Padma Shri this year are 100-year-old yoga exponent      Charlotte Chopin; 79-year-old Kiran Vyas, a global yoga and Ayurveda practitioner and   Fred Negrit, an Indologist fostering awareness and appreciation of Indian culture.

Dr. Filliozat is the son of famous Indianist Jean Filliozat. His field of research is based on two lines of study closely related to Sanskrit: On the one hand, the knowledge and methods of intellectual work of Sanskrit scholars and, on the other, structure of Hindu temples in their correlation with Sanskrit culture. 

He is the author of numerous Indianist studies and collaborates in projects for dissemination of philological and archaeological works through digital tools with National Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts, New Delhi.

Dr. Filliozat’s wife Dr. Vasundhara Kavali Filliozat is a noted Art Historian and Epigraphist and is a recipient of Kannada Rajyotsava Award. She has co-authored books on Saiva temples with her husband, whom she met while studying under his father in Paris. The couple spends regularly six months in France and the other six in Mysuru.

In November 2023, Shree Vanamali Samskruti Seva Award, instituted by Shree Vanamali Charitable Trust, Mysuru, was awarded to the extraordinary couple who are the custodians of Hindu culture.