Rahul Sankrityayan
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Rahul Sankrityayan | |
|---|---|
 Bust of Sankrityayan in Darjeeling | |
| Born | Kedarnath Pandey 9 April 1893 Pandaha, North-Western Provinces, British India |
| Died | 14 April 1963 (aged 70) Darjeeling, West Bengal, India |
| Occupation |
|
| Nationality | Indian |
| Subject | Buddhism, Communism, History, Indology, philology, philosophy, Tibetology |
| Notable works | Volga Se Ganga, Madhya Asia ka Itihas, Meri Jeevan Yatra, Ghumakkad Shastra |
| Notable awards | 1958: Sahitya Akademi Award 1963: Padma Bhushan |
| Spouse | Santoshi, Ellena Narvertovna Kozerovskaya, Kamala Sankrityayan |
Rahul Sankrityayan (born Kedarnath Pandey; 9 April 1893 – 14 April 1963) was an Indian author, essayist, playwright, historian, scholar of Buddhism who wrote in Hindi and Bhojpuri. Known as "father of Hindi travel literature", Sankrityayan played a pivotal role in giving Hindi travelogue a literary form. He was one of the most widely travelled scholars of India, spending forty-five years of his life on travels away from his home in locations like Russia, Tibet, China, Central Asia, etc.[1]
Knowing around 30 languages including English, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Pali, Russian, Arabic, etc., Sankrityayan almost always wrote in Hindi.[2] The honorific mahapandit ("Great scholar" in Hindi) has been applied before his name since his lifetime.
Sankrityayan wrote extensively, his collection of works spanning more than 100 books on various subjects like Indology, Communism, Buddhism, and philology as well as various short stories, novels and plays. He was awarded the 1958 Sahitya Akademi Award for his 2 volume "Madhya Asia ka Itihaas" (History of Central Asia).[2][3] The Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, the country's third-highest civilian award, in 1963.[4] He died the same year, aged 70.
Biography
Childhood
Rahul Sankrityayan was born as Kedarnath Pandey, the eldest child in a Brahmin family in the village of Pandaha in Azamgarh district on the 9th of April, 1893.[5][6] His ancestral village was Kanaila Chakrapanpur, Azamgarh district, in Eastern Uttar Pradesh.[7] His mother tongue was Bhojpuri.[8] For the previous seven generations his family had been landowners who earned their livings as farmers. His early education was arranged by his maternal grandfather, Ramsharan Pathak who had him educated in the Urdu language as at the time, Urdu was seen as the language of the court and an essential language for one to know if they intended to work in any adminitrative job in British India. In 1899, he also briefly attended at Hindu school in Badauda where he learnt the Devanagari script. Around 1902, Sankrityayan began to study Sanskrit with his uncle, Mahadev Pandit, who was a well-known scholar of the language.
In 1909, after completing middle-school, his grandfather intended for him to start receiving an English-medium education however Sankrityayan resisted this as he wished to be able to continue studying Sanskrit. He also termed English an "alien language.[9]
Early travels
Sankrityayan's travel history began in 1910, when he set out for the Western Himalayas for pilgrimages. He travelled to Haridwar, Rishikesh, Badrinath and Kedarnath with the intention of studying Vedanta.[10] His grandfather learned about his travels and tried to retrieve him but met with little success. Afterwards Sankrityayan went to Varanasi and started his studies there in 1911.[11] Due to his time spent travelling across India, Sankrityayan had no formal education or university degree and was largely self-taught on various topics.
In 1912, he travelled to Chhapra in Bihar where he was initiated as a sadhu and given the new name, Ramudar Das. He was to become the heir of an mahant of an ashram belonging to the Vaishnava tradition. Eventually he found himself becoming bored and fled Chapra later that same year for South India where he stayed at the Uttarārdhī monastery. After a few months, he again left and arrived in Ayodhya.[12]
Philosophy
 |
After taking Diksha in Sri Lanka he became Rahul (son of Buddha) also used his gotra (Sankritya) with his name and was finally called “Rahul Sankrityayan”. Later he became a Socialist and rejected the concepts of reincarnation and the afterlife. The two volumes of Darshan-Digdarshan, a collected history of the world's philosophy give an indication of his philosophy where the second volume is much dedicated to Dharmakirti's Pramana Vartika. This he discovered in a Tibetan translation from Tibet.
Books
Sankrityayan understood several languages, including Bhojpuri, Hindi, Sanskrit, Pali, Magahi, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Kannada, Tibetan, Sinhalese, French and Russian.[1] He was also an Indologist, a Marxist theoretician, and a creative writer.[1] He started writing during his twenties and his works, totaling well over 100, covered a variety of subjects, including sociology, history, philosophy, Buddhism, Tibetology, lexicography, grammar, textual editing, folklore, science, drama, and politics.[1] Many of these were unpublished.[1] He translated Majjhima Nikaya from Prakrit into Hindi.[1]
One of his Hindi books is Volga Se Ganga (A journey from the Volga to the Ganges) – a work of historical fiction concerning the 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 in 6000 BC and ends in 1942, the year when Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian nationalist leader called for the Quit India movement. It was published in 1942. A translation into English of this work by Victor Kiernan was published in 1947 as From Volga to Ganga.[13]
His travelogue literature includes:
- Tibbat Me Sava Varsha (1933)
- Meri Europe Yatra (1935)
- Athato Ghumakkad Jigyasa
- Volga Se Ganga
- Asia ke Durgam Bhukhando Mein
- Yatra Ke Panne
- Kinnar Desh Mein
More than ten of his books have been translated and published in Bengali.
Personal life and family
Rahul was married when very young and never came to know anything of his child-wife, Santoshi.[citation needed] Probably he saw her only once in his 40s as per his autobiography: Meri Jivan Yatra. During his stay in Soviet Russia a second time, accepting an invitation for teaching Buddhism at Leningrad University, he came in contact with a Mongolian scholar Lola (Ellena Narvertovna Kozerovskaya).[citation needed] She could speak French, English, and Russian and write Sanskrit. She helped him in working on Tibetan- Sanskrit dictionary. Their attachment ended in marriage and the birth of son Igor Rahulovich.[citation needed] Mother and son did not accompany Rahul to India after the completion of his assignment.[citation needed]
Late in life, he married Kamala Sankrityayan, who was an Indian writer, editor and scholar in Hindi and Nepali. They had a daughter Jaya Sankrityayan Parhawk,[14] one son, Jeta. Jeta is a professor of Economics at North Bengal University.[15]
Death
Rahul accepted a teaching job at a Sri Lankan university, where he fell seriously ill with diabetes, high blood pressure and a mild stroke.[citation needed] He died in Darjeeling in 1963.[citation needed]
Eponymous awards
|
| Awards | About | Awarded By |
|---|---|---|
| Rahul Sankrityayan National Award | Contribution to Hindi travel Literature (also called Travel Litterateur's Honour) | Kendriya Hindi Sansthan, Government of India |
| Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan Paryatan Puraskar | For books written originally in Hindi on tourism and research. | Ministry of Tourism, Government of India |
Works
|
 |
In Hindi
Novels
- Baaeesween Sadi – 1923
- Jeeney ke Liye – 1940
- Simha Senapathi – 1944
- Jai Yaudheya – 1944
- Bhago Nahin, Duniya ko Badlo – 1944
- Madhur Swapna – 1949
- Rajasthani Ranivas – 1953
- Vismrit Yatri – 1954
- Divodas – 1960
- Vismriti Ke Garbh Me
Short Stories
- Satmi ke Bachche – 1935
- Volga Se Ganga – 1944
- Bahurangi Madhupuri – 1953
- Kanaila ki Katha – 1955–56
Autobiography
- Meri Jivan Yatra I – 1944
- Meri Jivan Yatra II – 1950
- Meri Jivan Yatra III, IV, V – published posthumously
Biography
- Sardar Prithvi Singh – 1955
- Naye Bharat ke Naye Neta (2 volumes) – 1942
- Bachpan ki Smritiyan – 1953
- Ateet se Vartaman (Vol I) – 1953
- Stalin – 1954
- Lenin – 1954
- Karl Marx – 1954
- Mao-Tse-Tung – 1954
- Ghumakkar Swami – 1956
- Mere Asahayog ke Sathi – 1956
- Jinka Main Kritajna – 1956
- Vir Chandrasingh Garhwali – 1956
- Mahamanav Budha – 1956
- Akbar – 1956
- Simhala Ghumakkar Jaivardhan – 1960
- Kaptan Lal – 1961
- Simhal ke Vir Purush – 1961
Some of his other books are:-
- Mansik Gulami
- Rhigvedic Arya
- Ghumakkar Shastra
- Kinnar desh mein
- Darshan Digdarshan
- Dakkhini Hindi ka Vyaakaran
- Puratatv Nibandhawali
- Manava Samaj
- Madhya Asia ka Itihas
- Samyavad hi Kyon
In Bhojpuri
Plays
- Japaniya Rachhachh
- Des Rachchhak
- Jarmanwā ke hār nihichay
- ī hamār laṛāi'"
- Dhunmum Netā
- Naiki Duniya
- Jonk
- Mehrarun ke Durdasa
Related to Tibetan
- Tibbati Bal-Siksha – 1933
- Pathavali (Vol. 1,2 & 3) – 1933
- Tibbati Vyakaran (Tibetan Grammar) – 1933
- Tibbat May Budh Dharm-1948
- Lhasa ki or
- Himalaya Parichay Bhag 1
- Himalaya Parichay Bhag 2
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f Sharma, R. S. (2009). Rethinking India's Past. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-569787-2.
- ^ a b Kumar, Kuldeep (21 April 2017). "A forgotten genius". The Hindu.
- ^ Upadhyaya, Bhagavat Sharan (April–September 1959). "Madhya Asia ka Itihas". Indian Literature. 2 (2): 81. JSTOR 23329331 – via JSTOR.
- ^ "Padma Awards" (PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
- ^ Mishra, Girish; Pandey, Braj Kumar (1996). Sociology and Economics of Casteism in India: A Study of Bihar. University of Michigan. p. 162. ISBN 978-81-7307-036-5.
- ^ Meri Jeevan Yatra. Vol. 1. pp. 1–4, 465–488.
- ^ Prabhakar Machwe (1 January 1998). Rahul Sankrityayan (Hindi Writer). Sahitya Akademi. pp. 12–. ISBN 978-81-7201-845-0.
- ^ Chudal 2016, p. 44.
- ^ Chudal 2016, p. 50.
- ^ Chudal 2016, p. 72.
- ^ "Rahul Sankrityayan's Tibet Story". The Wire. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
- ^ Chudal 2016, p. 73-5.
- ^ Rahul Sankrityayana From Volga to Ganga, Rahula Publication, Mussorie, 1947.
- ^ Sankrityayan’s daughter protests shifting of Patna Museum Collection, Times of India, Sept 13, 2017
- ^ Roles of Rahul Sankrityayan in Nepalese Cultural Tourism is an analysis of Nepalese, BP Badal, Nepal Journal of Development Studies, 2019]
Further reading
- Ram Sharan Sharma, Rahul Sankrityayan and Social Change, Indian History Congress, 1993.
- Himalayan Buddhism, Past and Present: Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan centenary volume by D. C. Ahir (ISBN 978-81-7030-370-1)
- Prabhakar Machwe: "Rahul Sankrityayan" New Delhi 1978: Sahitya Akademi. [A short biography including a list of Sankrityayan's works]
- Bharati Puri, Traveller on the Silk Road: Rites and Routes of Passage in Rahul Sankrityayan’s Himalayan Wanderlust, China Report (Sage: New Delhi), February 2011, vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 37–58.
- Chudal, Alaka Atreya (2016). A Freethinking Cultural Nationalist: A Life History of Rahul Sankrityayan. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199466870.
- 1893 births
- 1963 deaths
- Bhojpuri-language writers
- Hindi-language writers
- People from Azamgarh district
- Indian Indologists
- 20th-century Indian translators
- 20th-century Indian linguists
- Indian Marxists
- Writers from Uttar Pradesh
- Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Hindi
- Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in literature & education
- Indian Sanskrit scholars
- Tibetologists
- Newar studies scholars
- Indian travel writers
- Prisoners and detainees of British India
- Indian male novelists
- 20th-century Indian biographers
- Indian autobiographers
- Indian social reformers
- 20th-century Indian novelists
- 20th-century Indian short story writers
- Scholars from Uttar Pradesh
- Indian former Hindus
- Indian atheists
- Indian scholars of Buddhism
- Himalayan studies