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He was born in the city of Raipur in Madhya Pradesh, and was educated in Amravati and Wilson College, Bombay. He left for the United States in 1906, and obtained his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1911. After returning to India, he joined Calcutta University as Professor of Economics, Science of Administration and Universal Jurisprudence.

In 1920, Dr. Ketkar (who was a Chitpavan Brahmin) married a Jewish scholar named Edith Cohn. (In those days, interfaith marriages were extremely rare in India.) Edith's name was changed to Sheelavati Ketkar after the wedding. Mrs Ketkar's book about their life was later translated into Marathi by Durga Bhagwat.

Dr. Ketkar served as the president of two Marathi literary conventions, namely the Sharadopasak Sammelan (????????? ???????) in 1926, and the Maharashtra Sahitya Sammelan (?????????? ??????? ???????) in 1931.

Dr. Ketkar, who was a diabetic, died in Pune of a gangrenous wound. A biography has been written by D.N. Gokhale.

His doctoral thesis was later published as The History of Caste in India (volume 1), which determines the date of Manusmriti and comments on the nature of caste-relations in that period. He later wrote a sequel to this work, titled An Essay on Hinduism, which discusses, inter alia, the genesis of the caste system in India.

In 1914, he published two more treatises, namely An Essay on Indian Economics, and Hindu Law and the Methods and Principles of the Historical Study Thereof.

Dr. Ketkar's political opinions may be gleaned from his Nishastranche Rajkaran (??:?????????? ???????, Politics of the Unarmed, 1926) and Victorious India (1937). After nearly a decade of study, he wrote an historical work called Pracheen Maharashtra: Shaatvahan Parva (??????? ??????????: ??????? ????, Ancient Maharashtra: The Shaatvahan Period, 1935).

Dr. Ketkar's work on the encyclopaedia occupied him approximately from 1916 until 1928. He was not only the originator and the editor, but also the accountant and thegeneral manager of the entire project.

The encyclopaedia was published in 23 volumes. The first 5 volumes are introductory, and consist of a series of lengthy articles on various sociological and historical subjects. They are titled as follows:

• Volume 1: Hindustan ani Jaga (?????????? ???? ??, India and the World)
• Volume 2: Vedavidya (?????????, Vedic Knowledge)
• Volume 3: Buddhapurva Jaga (?????????? ??, The World Before Buddha)
• Volume 4: Buddhotar Jaga (?????????? ??, The World After Buddha)
• Volume 5: Vijnanetihas (?????????????, History of Sciences)

Volumes 6 through 21 consist of an alphabetically arranged series of short articles (as in a conventional encyclopaedia). Volume 22 is the index (????), and finally volume 23 (Hindusthan, ??????????) contains some additional information about India.

A vivid account of his experiences about this project is contained in his bookMaze baara varshanche kaam, urf jnanakosha mandalacha itihas (???? ???? ???????? ???, ???? ???????? ??????? ??????, Twelve Years of My Work, or the History of the Encyclopaedia Committee).

Dr. Ketkar also wrote the following novels in Marathi.

• Gondavanatila priyamvada ani gharkutte gharanyacha itihas (?????????? ????????? ???? ???????? ????????? ??????, 1926)
• Ashavadi, athava eka pravahapatiteche charitra (????????, ???? ??? ????????????? ??????, 1927)
• Gaavasasu (???????, 1930)
• Brahmanakanya (?????????????, 1930)
• Bhatakya (??????, 1937)
• Vichakshana (???????, 1937)

Dr. Ketkar's novels may be called 'novels of ideas' in a broad sense of the term. They evince little interest in conventional character development; on the other hand, they contain much information about various tribes and societies, coupled with several strikingly blunt ideas about sociological reform.Critical studies of Dr. Ketkar's novels have been published by Gokhale

and Bhagwat .