Sastri started his career as a professor of Sanskrit and Philosophy at D.A.V. College, and later, he became a reader in Sanskrit at the Punjab University, teaching Sanskrit and Comparative Philology. He passed the Honours Examination in Sanskrit and received the Master of Oriental Learning (MOL).[4]
He joined the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in 1903 and was appointed as an assistant archaeologist surveyor in the Northern Circle. Soon after, he was deputed by John Marshall, the then director general of ASI, to survey some archaeological sites in the Ganga-Yamunadoab, where he found some copper hoard objects.[4] He explored and surveyed sites in Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh including Rajpur Parasu, Bithoor, Parihar, Kullu, Mandi and Suket.[4] He was the first person to have noticed the Brahmi inscriptions at Shalri, which were later studied by J. Ph. Vogel and Dineshchandra Sircar.[5]
He was promoted to the rank of Assistant Archaeologist, Librarian and Curator of the Nagpur Government Museum in 1906. He was sent to Harappa in 1909.[4]
On 16 September 1925, he was appointed the government epigraphist for India. He held the post till 10 October 1933. He edited some volumes of Epigraphia Indica, the official publication of the ASI.[4]
The Punjab University awarded him the Doctor of Literature for his work Bhasa and the Authorship of the Thirteen Trivandrum Plays. The Baroda State awarded him the title of Jñānaratna.[4]
Selected works
Nālandā and Its Epigraphic Material, 1942, Issue 66 of the Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India
