Dr. P.V. Kane was born on 7 May 1880.  His father Vaman Shankar was a taluka lawyer.  Dr. Kane completed his Bachelor's degree from Wilson College, Bombay in 1901.  He completed his first year LL.B. in 1902, second year LL.B. in 1908 and LL.M. in 1912.  He passed his Master's degree in Sanskrit with English as optional subject in 1903.  He started practicing law in the Bombay High Court as a pleader from 1911.  The British government conferred the title of Mahamahopadhyay (the greatest among the great teachers) in 1942.  In the same year the Allahabad University conferred on him the Honorary Degree of D. Litt.  In November 1953 the President of India was pleased to nominate his as a member of the Rajyasabha (Council of States) and when the term expired on 1-4-1958 he was again nominated for six years.  In 1960 the University of Poona conferred on me the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters.  He received India's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna in 1963.  He had written the Monumental treatise in the Hindu Law the History of Dharmasastra in five volumes.  He served as the Vice-Chancellor of Bombay University. Some excerpts from the autobiographical epilogue published in his book the History of Dharmasastra Volume 5(2) published by Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona in 1962 on his contribution as a lawyer: "In 1917 June I was appointed as a Professor of Law in the Government Law College at Bombay from about 1918, I began to have good work as a lawyer.  I not only conducted cases in the Bombay High Court, but I appeared before the District Courts of the mofussil in several districts such as Khandesh, Nagar, Poona, Sholapur, Satara and Ratnagiri.  I had substantial legal work from 1919 to about 1949.  For the benefit of those who made inquiries and of those who desire to pursue literary studies while working as lawyers, I shall briefly state how I saved time for literary work.  The High Court worked for five days in the week.  I always utilized all holidays for literary work; Saturday and Sunday have always been my busiest days.  There were always two Benches (sometimes three Benches also) on the Appellate Side of the High Court.  Often ten appeals were placed on the board for each Bench every day, since the practice of the Court has been that if an Advocate had two matters, one in each of the different courts and he was engaged in one court, his case in the other court was kept back till he became free.  So when an advocate had even one appeal in one court and that too very low down in the list, even then he had to be present in court from the beginning, since appeals lower down on the Board might be taken up by the Court if the lawyers therein were available.  Most lawyers when free spent their time in chitchat in the Advocates' room.  I spent such time in the Library for preparing my briefs that were likely to be taken up in the next few weeks.  I hardly ever read my briefs at home.  Therefore, I could devote every day some hours in the morning and evening to my work on Sanskrit studies.  I always worked for eight or nine hours a day and sometimes ten to twelve hours from 1911 to 1948,except when I was not in Bombay. From the beginning of 1955 I did not taken any fresh legal work and by March 1956 I got all my cases disposed off.  Since April 1956 I have systematically refused all pressure to accept briefs.  Since April 1956 I have devoted my time to Parliamentary work (till Septpember 1959 only) and to the last volume of the History of Dharmasastra."