Rahul Sankrityayan
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Rahul Sankrityayan (1893-1963) was one of the most widely traveled scholars of India, who spent forty-five years of his life on travel and away from home. In 1923, he became a Bauddh Bhikkhu. He was given the title of Mahapandit ("great pandit).
The well known historian Kashiprasad Jaisawal compared Rahul Sankrityayan with Buddha. Rahul's personality was as impressive and memorable as are his achievements. He travelled widely and wrote in five languages-Hindi, Sanskrit, Bhojpuri, Pali and Tibetan. His published works include autobiography, biography, travelogue, sociology, history, philosophy, Buddhism, Tibetology, lexicography, grammar, textual editing, folklore, science, fiction, drama, essays, politics, and pamphleteering.
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[edit] Childhood
He was born Kedarnath Pande on 9 April 1893 in a simple Saryupari Brahmin family in Azamgarh district,in Eastern Uttar Pradesh. His father, Govardhan Pande, was a religious-minded farmer. His mother, Kulawanti, used to stay with her parents at the village of Pandaha, where Kedar was born. He spent part of his childhood in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states of India. As his mother died at the age of twenty-eight and his father at the age of forty-five, he was brought up by his grandmother. His earliest memories as recorded by him were of the terrible famine in 1897.
[edit] Travels
His travels took him to different parts of India, including Ladakh, Kinnaur, and Kashmir. He also covered several other countries including Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Iran, China, and the former Soviet Union. While traveling, he mostly used surface transport, and he went to certain countries clandestinely, like Tibet where he went disguised as a Buddhist monk. He made several trips to Tibet and brought from there valuable manuscripts of Pali and Sanskrit, several books and paintings. Most of these formed a part of the libraries of Vikramshila and Nalanda Universities and were taken to Tibet by fleeing Buddhist monks during 12th century and onwards when the invading armies had destroyed these universities. Some accounts state that Rahul Sankrityayan employed twenty-two mules to bring back the loads of part of these materials, from Tibet to India.
In honour of him, Patna Museum, Patna, has a special section, where a number of these and other items have been displayed.
[edit] Books
Rahul Sankrityayan was a multilingual linguist, well versed in several languages and dialects, including Hindi, Sanskrit, Pali, Bhojpuri, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Kannada, Tibetan, Sinhalese, French and Russian. He was also an Indologist, a Marxist theoretician, and a creative writer. He has written at least 150 books and dissertations covering a variety of subjects.
One of his most famous books in Hindi is named Volga se Ganga, meaning “(A journey) from Volga to Ganga” and is an attempt to present a fictional account of migration of Aryans from the steppes of the Eurasia to regions around the Volga river; then their movements across the Hindukush and the Himalayas and the sub-Himalayan regions; and their spread to the Indo-Gangetic plains of the subcontinent of India. The book begins from 6000 BC and ends in 1942, the year when Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian nationalist leader has given a call for quit India movement. The book is remarkable for its historical elements interwoven with fiction.
[edit] In Soviet Union
Although he did not have any formal education, in view of his knowledge and command over the subject, University of Leningrad appointed him Professor of Indology in 1937-38 and again in 1947-48.
[edit] Further reading
- Himalayan Buddhism, Past and Present: Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan centenary volume by D. C. Ahir (ISBN 81-7030-370-2)
- Prabhakar Machwe: "Rahul Sankrityayan" New Delhi 1978: Sahitya Akademi. [A short biography including a list of Sankrityayan's works]
[edit] Works by Rahul Sankrityayan
[edit] In Hindi
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Novels
Short Stories
Autobiography
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Biography
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Some of his other books are Bhago nahin duniya ko badlo, Rhigvedic Arya,Ghumakkar Shastra,Kinnar desh mein, Darshan Digdarshan, Dakkhini Hindi ka Vyaakaran etc.
[edit] In Bhojpuri
- Tin Natak - 1942
- Panch Natak - 1942
[edit] Related to Tibetan (language?)
It is not clear what the first two works are about, but the third is a grammar of the Tibetan language.
- Tibbati Bal-Siksha - 1933
- Pathavali (Vol. 1,2 & 3) - 1933
- Tibbati Vyakaran - 1933
(The list is incomplete)
