Anundoram Borooah (1850-89) was an eminent oriental scholar from Assam and he became a member of the Indian Civil Service in 1871.
In 1881, Barroah started the compilation of a mammoth
project titled Comprehensive Grammar of the Sanskrit Language, Critical,
Analytical and Historical in twelve volumes of a thousand pages each. The first
volume which was published in 1882 was on Sanskrit Prosody and the next one was
on Letters and Their Changes (Nanartha Samgraha) published in 1884.
Between 1877 and 1880, he published the English-Sanskrit
Dictionary in three volumes. He added to the second and third volumes of his
dictionary, Higher Sanskrit Grammar and Ancient Geography of India
respectively. He also published Bhavabhuti’s Sanskrit drama, Mahaviracaritam (dealing
with the life of Rama, the hero of the Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana) with his
own commentary in Sanskrit known as Janakirama Bhashya and wrote a critical
dissertation called Bhavabhuti and His Place in Sanskrit Literature in which he
analyzed this work in depth.
Barroah’s other publications include scholarly editions of
Sarasvati Kanthabharanam, Amara Sinha’s Namalinganusasanam with the commentary
of Kshirasvami, Dhatukosha and Dhatuvrittisara.
Anundoram Borooah was a gifted Sanskrit poet and his talent is evident in the few verses which he added at the end of each act of his edition of Mahaviracaritam and in his invocation to the Sanskrit Muse found at the beginning of the second Volume of his Dictionary.