The President of the Republic of India awarded Prof. Jaroslav Vacek a prize for his contribution to the study of classical Tamil literature.
The prize Kural Peedam (literally the ‘Altar of Verses’) is awarded to foreign scholars, who have made an outstanding contribution to the study of classical Tamil literature. In previous years this prize has been awarded, for instance, to Prof. François Gros (Ecole Française d'Extr?me-Orient, Paris) and Prof. George L. Hart (University of California, Berkeley).
Prof. Vacek (*1943) is a Czech Indologist and founder of Mongolian Studies at Charles University. Besides Tamil, Tamil Studies and translations from Sanskrit and Tamil, his research activities concern questions of Sanskrit classical literature, the Indian linguistic area and Dravido-Altaic linguistic relations. His teaching activities include the languages and cultures of India. Between 1976 and 1990 he also taught Mongolian. For many years he has been the Director of the Institute of South and Central Asia, Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University and he is also the director of the Research Programme Oriental and African Studies at Charles University.
