Siddheshwar Varma
Siddheshwar Varma (1887–1985) was an Indian linguist, phonetician, grammarian and scholar, known for his knowledge of over 30 languages. He was the secretary of the International Moral Education Congress for India (1923) and the author of such books as The Bhalesī dialect, A Glossary of the Khāsī : a north-western Himalayan dialect of Jammu and Kashmir, Siddha-Bhāratī; The rosary of Indology and Pahari dictionary of 27-north-western Himalayan dialects. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1957, for his contributions to literature and education. Biography Siddheshwar Varma, originally named Pindidas, was born on 3 November 1887 at Rawal Pindi in the erstwhile Punjab Province of British India in a Khatri family to Ram Dass Nanda and Jamana Devi, and did his early schooling at various places like Rawalpindi, Kamalpur, Punjab, Jhelum, Gujranwala and Mianwali. His career started as private secretary to Raja Sir Nahar Singh, a post he took up after completing his master's degree in history. Simultaneously, he worked as a tutor to Prince Satrunjaya Singh, who would later become the Raja of the princely state of Bijwa (Oudh) but moved later to K. G. Hindu High School, Gujranwala as a