Professor Dr. S. S. Bahulkar has been teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Sanskrit for more than 40 years, during which time he has been engaged in a variety of research projects. Both his research and teaching focus on Vedic Studies, Buddhist Studies, Ayurveda, and Classical Sanskrit Literature.  For his Ph. D., he worked on the “Healing Practices in the Atharvaveda” and published his thesis under the title Medical Ritual in the Atharvaveda Tradition. He continued his research in that field and worked on the exegetical literature of the Atharvaveda. After having done his M. A. and Ph. D. in Sanskrit from the University of Pune (1970 – 1977), he taught Sanskrit and conducted his postgraduate research at the Nagoya University, Japan where he began to study Tibetan and Japanese languages and Buddhist Tantric works in Sanskrit and Tibetan. He worked in the Deccan College, Pune (1979-81), the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune (1981-1993; 1995-2006; 2009) and the Central University of Tibetan Studies (CUTS), Sarnath (1993-95; 2006-2009; 2010-2012). He headed the Department of Sanskrit at the Tilak Maharashtra University (1981 – 2009) and taught Vedic and classical Sanskrit. He headed the Rare Buddhist Texts Research Department of CUTS and edited the celebrated Commentary Vimapalaprabhā on the Kālacakra Tantra (Vols. 2 and 3), the Journal Dhīḥ and some other Tantric works. He has visited a number of foreign countries in connection with teaching, research and conferences. He has also worked as Visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada (1993), Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany (1998-99), Harvard University, Cambridge, U. S. A. (2010), Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Oxford University, U. K. (2014), Philipps Universität, Marburg, Germany (2013, 2014, 2016), Kanazawa University, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, (2017), Kanazawa, Japan (2017), University of Toronto, Canada (2018) and Fudan University, Shanghai, China (2019). He was appointed member on the International Advisory Board of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Centre, U.S.A. He was ICCR Chair for Indian Studies at the Tel Aviv University, Israel and taught Sanskrit at the Department of East Asian Studies of that University. (24 April – 27 June 2017). Recently he has been nominated as Senior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies of Oxford University (U. K.)

He has written and edited 12 books and about 65 research and popular articles. Presently he is working on a number of research projects pertaining to Vedic, classical Sanskrit and Buddhist Sanskrit texts.  

For his outstanding contribution to Vedic and Sanskrit Studies, he has been honoured with prestigious awards such as Nanasaheb Peshawe Puraskar of Devadevaeshvar Sansthan, Pune, Bhasha Samman of Sahitya Academi, Delhi and Mahamahopadhyaya P. V. Kane Gold Medal of the Asiatic Society, Mumbai. 

While working in the field of Vedic Studies, Prof. Bahulkar did field work searching for the living tradition of the Atharvaveda and manuscripts of Atharvavedic texts. He edited some unpublished texts and wrote several articles on the Atharvaveda. He was instrumental in arranging the audio recording of six Vedic Shakhas in various parts of India with the financial assistance of the Danish Government. The recording is preserved at the Royal Library, Copenhagen and a set at the Veda-Shastrottejak Sabha, Pune. He is associated with several academic Institutes, namely, the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Veda-Shastrottejak Sabhā, Vaidika Saṁśodhana Maṇḍala, and the Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies, University of Pune. He is a founder member and office bearer of the Bṛhanmahārāṣṭra Prācyavidyā Pariṣad, Saṁvidyā Institute of Cultural Studies and Deshana Institute of Buddhist and Allied Studies, (all in Pune). He is Adjunct Professor at the Department of Pali, the University of Pune (renamed as Sāvitrībai Phule Pune University). Presently, he is the Chief Investigator, Bhāgavata Purāṇa Project of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.