Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NM)

Mangalore, Jan 7: Historian and researcher Manjeshwar Mukund Prabhu passed away on Sunday January 5 at a private hospital. He was 83.

He was also a numismatist, gemologist, a collector of deep sea shells, stamps and precious stones.

A former soap factory chemist, Mukund was born at Manjeshwar in 1931. He studied in Besant School and then in Canara School, before joining St Aloysius College. Later, he joined the Soap Institute in Calicut in Kerala for technical studies. For three decades, he served in Mallya Soap Works and later in Ashok Agro Industries for nearly ten years.

Mukund Prabhu was not just a chemist at the soap factory. He was a true scholar. He had collected a large number of shells from different parts of the world and donated 3,000 shells of 2,000 rare species, which had high commercial value, to the Department of Zoology free of cost for education and research purposes.

Prabhu was also a collector of coins. The Reserve Bank of India had displayed some of the coins collected by him at its Mumbai branch. In addition, Prabhu was also a philatelist.

In 2009, Mangalore University conferred honorary doctorate on him for his outstanding works and achievements as a historian, author and researcher.

He is survived by wife Geeta, a son and a daughter.