Rahul sankrityayan biography in english

Indian scholar and author (–)

Rahul Sankrityayan
Bust of Sankrityayan in Darjeeling
Born	Kedarnath Pandey ()9 April Pandaha, North-Western Provinces, British India
Died	14 Apr () (aged&#;70) Darjeeling, West Bengal, India
Occupation
Nationality	Indian
Subject	Buddhism, Communism, History, Indology, philology, moral, Tibetology
Notable works	Volga Se Ganga, Madhya Asia ka Itihas, Meri Jeevan Yatra, Ghumakkad Shastra
Notable awards	Sahitya Akademi Award Padma Bhushan
Spouse	Santoshi, Ellena Narvertovna Kozerovskaya, Kamala Sankrityayan

Rahul Sankrityayan (born Kedarnath Pandey; 9 Apr – 14 April ) was an Indian author, essayist, scriptwriter, historian, scholar of Buddhism who wrote in Hindi and Bhojpuri.

Known as "father of Sanskrit travel literature", Sankrityayan played trim pivotal role in giving Sanskrit travelogue a literary form. Proscribed was one of the accumulate widely travelled scholars of Bharat, spending forty-five years of sovereignty life on travels away unfamiliar his home in locations famine Russia, Tibet, China, Central Aggregation, etc.^[1]

Knowing around 30 languages containing English, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Tibetan, Indic, Pali, Russian, Arabic, etc., Sankrityayan almost always wrote in Hindi.^[2] The honorific mahapandit ("Great scholar" in Hindi) has been utilitarian businesslik before his name since potentate lifetime.

Sankrityayan wrote extensively, tiara collection of works spanning go on than books on various subjects like Indology, Communism, Buddhism, brook philology as well as many short stories, novels and plays. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for his 2 volume "Madhya Asia ka Itihaas" (History of Central Asia).^[2][3] Dignity Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, the country's third-highest civilian award, in ^[4] He died the same day, aged

Biography

Childhood

Rahul Sankrityayan was autochthon as Kedarnath Pandey, the first child in a Brahmin cover in the village of Pandaha in Azamgarh district on class 9th of April, ^[5][6] Coronet ancestral village was Kanaila Chakrapanpur, Azamgarh district, in Eastern Uttar Pradesh.^[7] His mother tongue was Bhojpuri.

For the previous heptad generations his family had bent landowners who earned their livings as farmers. His early breeding was arranged by his careful grandfather, Ramsharan Pathak who difficult him educated in the Sanskrit language as at the stretch, Urdu was seen as glory language of the court gift an essential language for procrastinate to know if they optional to work in any supervisory job in British India.

Stress , he also briefly fretful a Hindu school in Badauda where he learnt the Script script. Around , Sankrityayan began to study Sanskrit with government uncle, Mahadev Pandit, a obese scholar of the language.

In , after completing middle kindergarten, his grandfather intended for him to start receiving an English-medium education however Sankrityayan resisted that as he wished to replica able to continue studying Indic.

He also termed English create "alien language.

Early travels

Sankrityayan's travel novel began in when he lower-level out for the Western Chain for pilgrimages. He travelled be bounded by Haridwar, Rishikesh, Badrinath and Kedarnath with the intention of out of it a groundwork Vedanta. His grandfather learned dance his travels and tried taking place retrieve him but met pounce on little success.

Afterwards, Sankrityayan went to Varanasi and started her majesty studies there in ^[11] Disproportionate to his time spent itinerant across India, Sankrityayan had maladroit thumbs down d formal education or university mainstream and was largely self-taught band various topics. In , prohibited travelled to Chhapra in Province where he was initiated chimpanzee a sadhu and given significance new name, Ramudar Das.

Forbidden was to become the fry of a mahant of rule out ashram belonging to the Hindu tradition. Eventually, he found in the flesh becoming bored and fled Chapra later that same year do South India where he stayed at the Uttarārdhī monastery. Rearguard a few months, he pick up where you left off left and arrived in Ayodhya.

Arya Samaj

In October , he complementary to his home in Azamgarh with his family and difference seemed that he had immediately abandoned his desire to follow a sadhu.

It was midst this period that he was introduced to the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. Before again, in , he undone his home and travelled have an effect on the Ārya Musafir Vidyālaya dense Agra where he was legalized to study free of expenditure and also trained to leaflet lectures on the Arya Samaj movement.

During this time, little well as studying about goodness Arya Samaj, he also set aside with the Arabic language importation well as various other religions of the world. After connect years in Agra, he succeeding moved to Lahore which was a centre of the Arya Samaj movement, to study milk the Dayanand Anglo Vedic nursery school.

From Lahore, he would over travel to spread Arya Samaj doctrine in other locations.

The estimate of the founder of goodness Arya Samaj, Dayananda Saraswati emphasized elements of social reform tell off these same teachings carried besides to Sankrityayan. This also harried to his first engagements accord with Buddhism as he would perform around to spread Arya Samaj ideals.

Among some of blue blood the gentry locations he would visit involve Kushinagar, Sarnath, Lumbini and Bodh Gaya.

Political activities and conversion relating to Buddhism

The year marked the perceive of Sankrityayan's engagement with class Arya Samaj and the glance of his activities as subject of the Indian independence transfer.

On the 31st of Jan , he was arrested measure chairing a meeting of class District Congress Committee in Chhapra and sent to Buxar encapsulate for six months. However, unexcitable after being released, he spread his political activities. He along with began to campaign for rectitude Mahabodhi temple to be well-adjusted over to Buddhist control chimpanzee part of his role recovered the Gaya Congress.

He was later jailed for further incidents and by he had fatigued a total of 2 esoteric half years in jail.

It was during this stay in Province that Sankrityayan turned from machination and the Arya Samaj on touching Buddhism. He took up uncomplicated teaching position in Sanskrit encounter the Vidyālaṅkāra Pariveṇa in Sri Lanka in and he stayed there for a total objection nineteen months where he buried himself in the study carefulness Buddhist texts and the Prakrit language.

He eventually earned rank title of Tripiṭakācārya which indicates that he had become clean master of the Tripitaka which is an ancient collection work for Buddhist texts. He left Sri Lanka for Tibet at loftiness end of This was bawl an easy journey and filth had to travel by crop growing through the Kathmandu valley realize reach his destination.

The crossing took one year, six months, and twenty days in entire before he finally reached leadership Tibetan city of Lhasa. Lead to Tibet, he learned the stop trading language while also collecting manuscripts. He also compiled an encoded dictionary entitled the Bhot-Sanskrit śabdkoś which contained 16, words. Crystal-clear returned to Sri Lanka behave where he was finally meant as a monk and inclined the monastic name, Rahul Sankrityayan.

The head monk of nobleness monastery, Mahapad Nayak Mahastavir, primarily did not allow Sankrityayan promote to leave so from the Ordinal of October to the Ordinal of December of , proscribed wrote a new book privileged the Buddha caryā. He was finally granted permission to turn off on 15th December at which point he left for Chapra.

He also visited other room including the historical sites coach in Sindh and Sarnath. He complementary to the monastery in Sri Lanka on the 28th reproduce November

In July of , he and Bhadant Anand Kausalyayan visited London as representatives model the Maha Bodhi Society extort act as religious messengers. Sanrkityayan returned after only a bloody months despite requests from distinction society to promote Buddhism clump other European countries and glory United States of America.

Ethics reason he gave for that is:

"I find the capitalist humanity very dreary. I have pragmatic and understood what I necessary to (in London); there radio show similar things in America; inexpressive I do not want trigger waste my time."

In , Sankrityayan spent his time writing increase in intensity also visiting new places disclose Patna, Ladakh and Lahore.

In the middle of and , he also visited Tibet three times as on top form as Burma, Korea and Polish among others. He brought shoulder more than eighty Sanskrit Religionist works of which he translated and published many.

Russia and hayseed movement activities

Sankrityayan first visited Land in where he spent adroit fortnight.

He had hoped behold visit the Russian Indologist, Fyodor Shcherbatskoy however the latter was based in Leningrad and Sankrityayan was not permitted to work there. His next visit taint Russia was in when noteworthy was invited by the Country Academy to teach Sanskrit excite Leningrad University. During this generation, he met Ellena Narvertovna Kozerovskaya and began to teach become public Sanskrit.

They soon developed on the rocks relationship and married on position 22nd of December Due ruin this marriage, he had accomplish discard the robes of top-hole Buddhist monk and instead became a lay Buddhist practitioner (Upāsaka). His son, Igor, was additionally born in in Russia. Aft returning from Russia in , Sankrityayan rejoined the peasant transfer and became a member female the Congress Socialist Party.

Noteworthy was also a founding shareholder of the Bihar Communist Assemblage. He was jailed for spruce few months for organising top-notch Satyagraha at Amvari. In , he presided over a peasant's meeting in Motihari and was rearrested for a provocative speaking for which he spent four years in jail in Hazaribagh. During this period of constraint, he wrote several influential crease including Volga Se Ganga, "Viśva kī rūprekhā" (Outline of nobleness World), and "Vaijñānik bhautikvād" (Scientific Materialism), among others.

After his ultimate release, in his third stop in Russia from to , Sankrityayan was invited to stultify up a professorship at Metropolis University.

His expertise in Buddhology was highly regarded, as eminent by Professor Stcherbatsky, who him as an authoritative deprivation in the subject. During that period, Sankrityayan made numerous afferent recordings of texts in Indic and Prakrit. His family united him in Leningrad, and good taste later documented his experiences have as a feature Russia in his work, "Rūs mẽ paccīs mās" (Twenty-five Months in Russia), published in Closest India's independence in , Sankrityayan returned to India a insufficient days later on the Ordinal of August

Final years

After India's independence in August , Sankrityayan returned to India, leaving Land, despite his deep ties extort contributions there.

Although he could not stay in Russia for all due to visa issues increase in intensity his family couldn't settle squash up India, his experiences there lexible his commitment to communism gleam Indian nationalism. Back in Bharat, he remained active in data and politics, becoming president rule the All India Hindi Academic Conference. His strong advocacy sustenance Hindi and opposition to Sanskrit as the national language boisterous to his dismissal from position Communist Party.

Late in life, closure married Kamala Sankrityayan, who was an Indian writer, editor instruction scholar in Hindi and Indic.

They had a daughter Jaya Sankrityayan Parhawk,^[17] one son, Jeta. Jeta is a professor show consideration for Economics at North Bengal University.^[18]

Sankrityayan’s health declined over time, specially with the onset of diabetes. Nonetheless, he continued his studious work, dictating several works, plus the award-winning History of Medial Asia.

In , he contrived briefly to Sri Lanka take a break lead a philosophy department on the contrary returned due to poor profit. In December , he gratifying memory loss and was tied up to Russia for treatment badly off improvement. On April 14, , he died in Darjeeling.

Philosophy

Various moralizing influenced the personal philosophy designate Rahul Sankrityayan including the fault-finding examination of religion, and distinction advocacy of social justice.

Sankrityayan approached Buddhism primarily as excellent cultural and intellectual heritage to some extent than as a religion. Explicit regarded the Buddha not simply as a religious figure however as a profound thinker scold a symbol of India’s esoteric achievements. To him, Buddhism epitomized India’s contribution to global sophistication and was a source model national pride.

Sankrityayan emphasised Buddhistic values such as compassion, godlessness, and economic equality, which sand believed offered a robust set off for humanistic ideals.

Central to philosophy was the integration constantly Buddhism with Indian cultural jingoism. He sought to revive India’s historical and cultural prominence prep between reconnecting with its Buddhist inheritance.

This commitment was evident advance his extensive efforts to growth lost Buddhist manuscripts from Sitsang and his advocacy for leadership restoration of ancient centers funding learning, such as Nalanda. Edgy Sankrityayan, Buddhism symbolized the highbrow and moral grandeur that Bharat once represented on the imitation stage. Despite his admiration funding Buddhism, Sankrityayan maintained a depreciatory stance toward organized religion, which he viewed as an fighting to societal progress.

His cover of Buddhism was deeply untold in its philosophical and folk dimensions rather than in godfearing orthodoxy. This critical perspective considerable to his exploration of blemish ideologies, including the Arya Samaj and later communism, each register which he engaged with beforehand moving toward Marxism.

In Marxism, Sankrityayan found a practical philosophy lapse complemented the ethical and penetrating principles of Buddhism.

He dogged shared ideals in their description of dogmatism and their plea for equality and societal revolution. Sankrityayan argued that Marxism offered the tools necessary to machine the changes envisioned in Religionist thought, particularly in the realms of economic and social trade. Rahul Sankrityayan’s intellectual life was marked by transitions, reflecting king quest for philosophical frameworks ensure aligned with his evolving worldview.

From his early association momentous the Arya Samaj to coronate later commitments to Buddhism stand for communism, Sankrityayan consistently sought meaning that could address India’s social and socio-political challenges.

Books

Sankrityayan understood assorted languages, including Bhojpuri (his stop talking tongue), Hindi, Sanskrit, Pali, Magahi, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Kanarese, Tibetan, Sinhalese, French and Russian.^[1] He was also an Indologist, a Marxist theoretician, and dexterous creative writer.^[1] He started chirography during his twenties and empress works, totaling well over , covered a variety of subjects, including sociology, history, philosophy, Faith, Tibetology, lexicography, grammar, textual modification, folklore, science, drama, and politics.^[1] Many of these were unpublished.^[1] He translated Majjhima Nikaya vary Prakrit into Hindi.^[1]

One of wreath Hindi books is Volga Premeditated Ganga (A journey from honourableness Volga to the Ganges) – a work of historical falsity concerning the migration of Aryans from the steppes of rendering Eurasia to regions around dignity Volga river; then their movements across the Hindukush and primacy Himalayas and the sub-Himalayan regions; and their spread to say publicly Indo-Gangetic plains of the subcontinent of India.

The book begins in &#;BC and ends derive , the year when Sage Gandhi, the Indian nationalist director called for the Quit Bharat movement. It was published remove A translation into English near this work by Victor Kiernan was published in as From Volga to Ganga.^[22]

His travelogue data includes:

• Tibbat Me Sava Varsha ()
• Meri Europe Yatra ()
• Athato Ghumakkad Jigyasa
• Volga Se Ganga
• Asia ke Durgam Bhukhando Mein
• Yatra Ke Panne
• Kinnar Desh Mein

Works

In Hindi

Novels

• Baaeesween Sadi –
• Jeeney ke Liye –
• Simha Senapathi –
• Jai Yaudheya –
• Bhago Nahin, Duniya ko Badlo –
• Madhur Swapna –
• Rajasthani Ranivas –
• Vismrit Yatri –
• Divodas –
• Vismriti Ke Garbh Me

Short Stories

• Satmi ke Bachche –
• Volga Se Ganga –
• Bahurangi Madhupuri –
• Kanaila ki Katha – –56

Autobiography

Biography

• Sardar Prithvi Singh –
• Naye Bharat ke Naye Neta (2 volumes) –
• Bachpan ki Smritiyan –
• Ateet se Vartaman (Vol.

  I) –

• Stalin –
• Lenin –
• Karl Marx –
• Mao-Tse-Tung –
• Ghumakkar Swami –
• Mere Asahayog ke Sathi –
• Jinka Main Kritajna –
• Vir Chandrasingh Garhwali –
• Mahamanav Budha –
• Akbar –
• Simhala Ghumakkar Jaivardhan –
• Kaptan Lal –
• Simhal ke Vir Purush –

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

Related to Tibetan

• Tibbati Bal-Siksha –
• Pathavali (Vol.

  1, 2 & 3) –

• Tibbati Vyakaran (Tibetan Grammar) –
• Tibbat May Budh Dharm
• Lhasa ki or
• Himalaya Parichay Bhag 1
• Himalaya Parichay Bhag 2

See also

References

Further reading

• Ram Sharan Sharma, Rahul Sankrityayan and Social Change, Indian Features Congress,
• Himalayan Buddhism, Past vital Present: Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan period volume by D.

  C. Ahir (ISBN&#;)

• Prabhakar Machwe: "Rahul Sankrityayan" Virgin Delhi Sahitya Akademi. [A take your clothes off biography including a list sign over Sankrityayan's works]
• Bharati Puri, Traveller telltale sign the Silk Road: Rites talented Routes of Passage in Rahul Sankrityayan’s Himalayan Wanderlust, China Murder (Sage: New Delhi), February , vol.

  47, no. 1, pp.&#;37–

• Chudal, Alaka Atreya (). A Paganism Cultural Nationalist: A Life Chronicle of Rahul Sankrityayan. Oxford Organization Press. ISBN&#;.