Prafulla Kumar Sen (died 24 March 1942), also known asSwami Satyananda Puri, was an Indianrevolutionary and philosopher. Puri, had in his youth taughtOriental philosophy at theUniversity of Calcutta and later atRabindranath Tagore'sVisva-Bharati University atShantiniketan. Encouraged by Tagore, he arrived inThailand in 1932, and in 1939, he founded theThai-Bharat Cultural Lodge, a cultural forum.[1] Arriving in Thailand, Puri was appointed a professor at theChulalongkorn University, lecturing in ancient Indian and Thai languages, and is said to have mastered theThai language in six months and went on to translate a number of Indian philosophical works and biographies, including theRamayana and biographies ofGandhi to Thai. His literary work eventually was more than twenty volumes.[1]
At the onset ofWorld War II in 1939, Puri also came to form theIndian National Council that, along withGiani Pritam Singh'sIndian Independence League, was instrumental in stimulating the evolving Japanese interest in supporting armed Indian resistance for theIndian independence movement. Singh and Puri were amongst the first people to negotiate withFujiwara Iwaichi and theF Kikan regarding Japanese policies in an effort to obtain a commitment about the support of the movement that ultimately saw the foundation of theIndian Independence League and theIndian National Army.[2] Both Puri and Pritam Singh were among the Indian delegates killed in a plane crash en route to theTokyo conference in March 1942. The Swami Satyananda Puri foundation was established by theThai-Bharat Cultural Lodge in 1942 in his honour. The SSPF library today is a reference library that houses many old and rare Indian texts. The foundation is also involved in promoting work on Indian culture, especially on theRamayana.
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