Rahul Sankrityayan | |
|---|---|
 Bust of Sankrityayan in Darjeeling | |
| Born | Kedarnath Pandey (1893-04-09)9 April 1893 |
| Died | 14 April 1963(1963-04-14) (aged 70) |
| 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 (bornKedarnath Pandey; 9 April 1893 – 14 April 1963) was an Indian author, essayist, playwright, historian, and scholar ofBuddhism who wrote inHindi andBhojpuri. Known as the "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 ofIndia, spending forty-five years away from his home, exploring regions such asRussia,Tibet,China, andCentral Asia.[1]
Knowing around 30 languages including English, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Pali, Russian, Arabic, etc., Sankrityayan almost always wrote in Hindi.[2] The honorificmahapandit ("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 1958Sahitya Akademi Award for his 2 volume"Madhya Asia ka Itihaas" (History of Central Asia).[2][3] The Government of India awarded him thePadma Bhushan, the country's third-highest civilian award, in 1963.[4] He died the same year, aged 70.
Rahul Sankrityayan was born as Kedarnath Pandey, the eldest child in aBhumihar[5] family in the village of Pandaha inAzamgarh district on 9 April 1893.[6][7] His ancestral village was Kanaila Chakrapanpur,Azamgarh district, in EasternUttar Pradesh.[8] His mother tongue wasBhojpuri.[9] 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 theUrdu 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 administrative job inBritish India. In 1899, he also briefly attended a Hindu school in Badauda where he learnt theDevanagari script. Around 1902, Sankrityayan began to studySanskrit with his uncle, Mahadev Pandit, 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".[10]
Sankrityayan's travel history began in 1910 when he set out for the WesternHimalayas for pilgrimages. He travelled toHaridwar,Rishikesh,Badrinath andKedarnath with the intention of studyingVedanta.[11] His grandfather learned about his travels and tried to retrieve him but met with little success. Afterwards, Sankrityayan went toVaranasi and started his studies there in 1911.[12] 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 toChhapra inBihar where he was initiated as asadhu and given the new name, Ramudar Das. He was to become the heir of a mahant of an ashram belonging to theVaishnava 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 inAyodhya.[13]
In October 1914, he returned to his home in Azamgarh with his family and it seemed that he had now abandoned his desire to become a sadhu. It was during this period that he was introduced to theArya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. Once again, in 1915, he left his home and travelled to theĀrya Musafir Vidyālaya inAgra where he was allowed to study free of cost and also trained to deliver lectures on the Arya Samaj movement. During this time, as well as studying about the Arya Samaj, he also engaged with theArabic language as well as various other religions of the world. After two years in Agra, he later moved toLahore which was a centre of the Arya Samaj movement, to study at theDayanand Anglo Vedic school. From Lahore, he would frequently travel to spread Arya Samaj doctrine in other locations.[14]
The teachings of the founder of the Arya Samaj,Dayananda Saraswati emphasised elements of social reform and these same teachings carried over to Sankrityayan. This also led to his first engagements withBuddhism as he would travel around to spread Arya Samaj ideals. Among some of the locations he would visit includeKushinagar,Sarnath,Lumbini andBodh Gaya.[14]
The year 1921 marked the end of Sankrityayan's engagement with the Arya Samaj and the beginning of his activities as part of theIndian independence movement. On the 31st of January 1922, he was arrested while chairing a meeting of the District Congress Committee inChhapra and sent to Buxar jail for six months. However, even after being released, he continued his political activities. He also began to campaign for theMahabodhi Temple to be handed over to Buddhist control as part of his role in the Gaya Congress. He was later jailed for further incidents and by 1927 he had spent a total of 2 and half years in jail.[15]
It was during this stay in Bihar that Sankrityayan turned from politics and the Arya Samaj to Buddhism. He took up a teaching position in Sanskrit at the Vidyālaṅkāra Pariveṇa inSri Lanka in 1927 and he stayed there for a total of nineteen months where he immersed himself in the study of Buddhist texts and thePali language. He eventually earned the title of Tripiṭakācārya which indicates that he had become a master of theTripitaka which is an ancient collection of Buddhist texts. He left Sri Lanka forTibet at the end of 1928. This was not an easy journey and he had to travel by land through theKathmandu valley to reach his destination. The journey took one year, six months, and twenty days in total before he finally reached the Tibetan city ofLhasa. In Tibet, he learned the local language while also collecting manuscripts. He also compiled an unpublished dictionary entitled theBhot-Sanskrit śabdkoś which contained 16,000 words.[16] He returned to Sri Lanka in 1930 where he was finally ordained as a monk and given the monastic name, Rahul Sankrityayan. The head monk of the monastery, Mahapad Nayak Mahastavir, initially did not allow Sankrityayan to leave so from the 7th of October to the 14th of December of 1930, he wrote a new book entitled theBuddha caryā. He was finally granted permission to leave on 15th December 1930 at which point he left forChapra. He also visited other places including the historical sites inSindh andSarnath. He returned to the monastery in Sri Lanka on the 28th of November 1931.
In July of 1932, he andBhadant Anand Kausalyayan visitedLondon as representatives of theMaha Bodhi Society to act as religious messengers. Sanrkityayan returned after only a few months despite requests from the society to promote Buddhism in other European countries and theUnited States of America. The reason he gave for this is:[16]
I find the capitalist life very dreary. I have observed and understood what I wanted to (in London); there are similar things in America; so I do not want to waste my time.
In 1933, Sankrityayan spent his time writing and also visiting new places inPatna,Ladakh andLahore. Between 1934 and 1938, he also visitedTibet three times as well asBurma,Korea andJapan among others. He brought back more than eightySanskrit Buddhist works of which he translated and published many.[16]
Sankrityayan first visited Russia in 1935 where he spent a fortnight. He had hoped to visit the Russian Indologist,Fyodor Shcherbatskoy however the latter was based inLeningrad and Sankrityayan was not permitted to travel there. His next visit to Russia was in 1937 when he was invited by theSoviet Academy to teach Sanskrit atLeningrad University. During this time, he met Ellena Narvertovna Kozerovskaya and began to teach her Sanskrit. They soon developed a relationship and married on the 22nd of December 1937. Due to this marriage, he had to discard the robes of a Buddhist monk and instead became a lay Buddhist practitioner (Upāsaka). His son, Igor, was also born in 1938 in Russia. After returning from Russia in 1938, Sankrityayan rejoined the peasant movement and became a member of theCongress Socialist Party. He was also a founding member of the Bihar Communist Party. He was jailed for a few months for organising aSatyagraha at Amvari. In 1940, he presided over a peasant's meeting inMotihari and was rearrested for a provocative speech for which he spent two years in jail inHazaribagh. During this period of imprisonment, he wrote several influential works includingVolga Se Ganga,"Viśva kī rūprekhā" (Outline of the World), and"Vaijñānik bhautikvād" (Scientific Materialism), among others.[17]
After his eventual release, in his third stay in Russia from 1945 to 1947, Sankrityayan was invited to take up a professorship at Leningrad University. His expertise in Buddhology was highly regarded, as noted by Professor Stcherbatsky, who praised him as an authoritative figure in the subject. During this period, Sankrityayan made numerous audio recordings of texts in Sanskrit and Prakrit. His family joined him in Leningrad, and he later documented his experiences in Russia in his work,"Rūs mẽ paccīs mās" (Twenty-five Months in Russia), published in 1951. Following India's independence in 1947, Sankrityayan returned to India a few days later on 17 August 1947.[17]
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After India's independence in August 1947, Sankrityayan returned to India, leaving Russia, despite his deep ties and contributions there. Although he could not stay in Russia permanently due to visa issues and his family couldn't settle in India, his experiences there solidified his commitment to communism and Indian nationalism. Back in India, he remained active in literature and politics, becoming president of the All India Hindi Literary Conference. His strong advocacy for Hindi and opposition to Urdu as the national language led to his dismissal from the Communist Party.[17]
Late in life, he marriedKamala Sankrityayan, who was an Indian writer, editor and scholar in Hindi and Nepali. They had a daughter Jaya Sankrityayan Parhawk,[18] one son, Jeta. Jeta is a professor of Economics at North Bengal University.[19]
Sankrityayan’s health declined over time, especially with the onset of diabetes. Nonetheless, he continued his literary work, dictating several works, including the award-winning History of Central Asia. In 1959, he moved briefly to Sri Lanka to lead a philosophy department but returned due to poor health. In December 1961, he suffered memory loss and was taken to Russia for treatment without improvement. On 14 April 1963, he died inDarjeeling.[17]
Various ideals influenced the personal philosophy of Rahul Sankrityayan including the critical examination of religion, and the advocacy ofsocial justice. Sankrityayan approached Buddhism primarily as a cultural and intellectual heritage rather than as a religion. He regarded the Buddha not merely as a religious figure but as a profound thinker and a symbol of India’s philosophical achievements. To him, Buddhism epitomized India’s contribution to global civilization and was a source of national pride. Sankrityayan emphasised Buddhist values such as compassion, atheism, and economic equality, which he believed offered a robust foundation for humanistic ideals.[20]
Central to his philosophy was the integration of Buddhism with Indian cultural nationalism. He sought to revive India’s historical and cultural prominence by reconnecting with its Buddhist legacy. This commitment was evident in his extensive efforts to retrieve lost Buddhist manuscripts fromTibet and his advocacy for the restoration of ancient centers of learning, such asNalanda. For Sankrityayan,Buddhism symbolized the intellectual and moral grandeur that India once represented on the world stage.[20] Despite his admiration for Buddhism, Sankrityayan maintained a critical stance toward organized religion, which he viewed as an impediment to societal progress. His embrace of Buddhism was deeply rooted in its philosophical and cultural dimensions rather than in religious orthodoxy. This critical perspective extended to his exploration of other ideologies, including the Arya Samaj and later communism, each of which he engaged with before moving toward Marxism.[20]
InMarxism, Sankrityayan found a practical philosophy that complemented the ethical and philosophical principles of Buddhism. He identified shared ideals in their critique of dogmatism and their advocacy for equality and societal transformation. Sankrityayan argued that Marxism offered the tools necessary to implement the changes envisioned in Buddhist thought, particularly in the realms of economic and social reform. Rahul Sankrityayan’s intellectual life was marked by transitions, reflecting his quest for philosophical frameworks that aligned with his evolving worldview. From his early association with the Arya Samaj to his later commitments to Buddhism and communism, Sankrityayan consistently sought ideas that could address India’s cultural and socio-political challenges.[21]
Sankrityayan understood severallanguages, includingBhojpuri (his mother tongue),Hindi,Sanskrit,Pali,Magahi,Urdu,Persian,Arabic,Tamil,Kannada,Tibetan,Sinhalese,French andRussian.[1] He was also anIndologist, aMarxist 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 translatedMajjhima Nikaya fromPrakrit intoHindi.[1][22]
One of his Hindi books isVolga Se Ganga (A journey from theVolga to theGanges) – a work of historical fiction concerning the migration ofAryans from thesteppes of theEurasia to regions around theVolga river; then their movements across theHindukush and theHimalayas and the sub-Himalayan regions; and their spread to theIndo-Gangetic plains of thesubcontinent of India. The book begins in 6000 BC and ends in 1942, the year whenMahatma Gandhi, the Indian nationalist leader called for theQuit India movement. It was published in 1942. A translation into English of this work by Victor Kiernan was published in 1947 asFrom Volga to Ganga.[23][24]
His travelogue literature includes:
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Novels
Short Stories
Autobiography
Biography
Some of his other books are:-
Plays
