Rahul Sankrityayan

Rahul Sankrityayan (9.4.1893 – 14.4.1963) is called the Father of Hindi Travelogue Travel literature because he is the one who played a pivotal role to give travelogue a 'literature 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. He travelled many places and wrote many travelogue approximately in the same ratio. He also famously known for his authentic description about his travels experiences, for instance- in his travelogue "Meri Laddakh Yatra" he presents overall regional, historical and cultural specificity of that region judiciously.

Variants of name

• Rahul Sankrityayana (राहुल सांकृत्यायन)
• Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan (महापंडित राहुल सांकृत्यायन)
• Sankrityayan

Childhood

He was born as Kedarnath Pandey to a Bhumihar Brahmin family on 9 April 1893 in Pandaha village. His ancestral village was Kanaila Chakrapanpur, Azamgarh district, in Eastern Uttar Pradesh. He went to a local primary school. Later he studied and mastered numerous languages independently, as well as learning the art of photography.

Became a Buddhist monk

Initially, he was a keen follower of Arya Samaj of Swami Dayananda Saraswati. Then Buddhism changed his life. After taking Diksha in Sri Lanka he became Rahul (son of Buddha) also used his Gotra (Sankritya) with his name and finally called “Rahul Sankrityayan”. He lost faith in God's existence but still retained faith in reincarnation. Later he moved towards Marxist Socialism and rejected the concepts of reincarnation and afterlife. The two volumes of Darshan-Digdarshan, the collected history of the World's philosophy give an indication of his philosophy when we find the second volume much dedicated to Dharmakirti's Pramana Vartika. This he discovered in Tibetan translation from Tibet.

Sankrityayan was also an Indian nationalist, having been arrested and jailed for three years for creating anti-British writings and speeches.

His Travels

Sankrityayan's travels took him to different parts of India including Ladakh, Kinnaur, and Kashmir. He also travelled to several other countries including Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Iran, China, and the former Soviet Union. He spent several years in the "Parsa Gadh" village in the Saran district in Bihar. The village's entry gate is named "Rahul Gate". While travelling, he mostly used surface transport, and he went to certain countries clandestinely; he entered Tibet as a Buddhist monk. He made several trips to Tibet and brought valuable paintings and Pali and Sanskrit manuscripts back to India. Most of these were a part of the libraries of Vikramshila and Nalanda Universities. These objects had been taken to Tibet by fleeing Buddhist monks during the twelfth and subsequent centuries when the invading Muslim armies had destroyed universities in India. Some accounts state that Rahul Sankrityayan employed twenty-two mules to bring these materials from Tibet to India. Patna Museum, Patna, has a special section of these materials in his honour, where a number of these and other items have been displayed.

His Books

Sankrityayan was a polyglot, well versed in several languages and dialects, including Hindi, Sanskrit, Pali, Bhojpuri, Magahi, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Kannada, Tibetan, Sinhalese, French and Russian. He was also an Indologist, a Marxist theoretician, and a creative writer. He started writing during his twenties and his works, totalling well over 100, covered a variety of subjects, including sociology, history, philosophy, Buddhism, Tibetology, lexicography, grammar, textual editing, folklore, science, drama, and politics. Many of these were unpublished. He translated Majjhima Nikaya from Prakrit into Hindi.

Volga Se Ganga: One of his most famous books in Hindi 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.

His most important travelogue literature is

   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.

He maintained daily diaries in Sanskrit which were used fully while writing his autobiography. In spite of profound scholarship, he wrote in very simple Hindi that a common person could follow. He wrote books of varied interest. He was aware of limitations of Hindi literature and singularly made up the loss in no small measure.

The historian Kashi Prasad Jayaswal 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, Pāli and Tibetan. His published works span a range of genres, which include autobiography, biography, travelogue, sociology, history, philosophy, Buddhism, Tibetology, lexicography, grammar, text editing, folklore, science, fiction, drama, essays, politics, and pamphleteering.

Death

Rahul's Tombstone at Darjeeling.This tombstone is established at a place called "Murda Haati" which is a cremation ground downtown in the lower altitudes of Darjeeling around 25 minutes drive from the Chow-Rasta.The same place also has the tombstone of Sister Nivedita.

Honours and Awards

He is referred to as the 'Greatest Scholar' (Mahapandit) for his scholarship. He was awarded the Padmabhushan in 1963, and he received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958 for his book Madhya Asia Ka Itihas.

राहुल सांकृत्यायन

डॉ. कृष्णा जाखड़ ने लिखा है....किसी देश और समाज को सही तरीके से समझने के लिए Ghasi Ram Verma।डॉ. घासीराम वर्मा राहुल सांकृत्यायन का उदाहरण देते हैं. राहुल सांकृत्यायन ने एक पुस्तक लिखी है वोल्गा से गंगा. वोल्गा रूस की एक नदी है तथा गंगा भारत की. इस पुस्तक में कोई 8000 वर्ष पहले लोग कैसे रूस से चले और भारत पहुंचे इसका वर्णन किया है. राहुल सांकृत्यायन एक रूढ़िवादी ब्राह्मण परिवार में पैदा हुआ था. उसके घरवाले जजमानी का काम करते थे जो उसको अच्छा नहीं लगता था. वह घर छोड़कर साधु बन गया. उसने बौद्ध-धर्म के बारे में पढ़ा तो बहुत प्रभावित हुआ और वह बौद्ध बन गया. अपने मित्र भदंत आनंद कौशल्यायन के साथ घूमता-घूमता लंका पहुंच गया. वहां से वह बहुत सारे बौद्ध ग्रंथ लाया. तिब्बत से भी कुछ बौद्ध ग्रंथ लाया. राहुल सांकृत्यायन वह घुमक्कड़ व्यक्ति था जो अपनी कुंठाओं से मुक्त होकर दुनिया खोज रहा था. बहुत सारे यात्री इसी तरीके से दुनिया के हर कोने में जाते हैं और वहां की अच्छाइयां खोजते हैं. जब तक हम अपनी कुंठाओं से मुक्त होकर दुनिया की अच्छाइयां कबूल नहीं करते तब तक हम कहां अच्छे हो पाते हैं?

Jat History

• Massagetaeans - Rahul Sankrityayan (राहुल सांकृत्यायन) suggested that the Massagetaeans are none other than the "Great Jits or Jats" of Asia.

• Yaudheyas: जय यौधेय लेखक राहुल सांकृत्यायन, पृ० 5 पर लिखते हैं कि -

भावलपुर रियासत से मुलतान तक फैला एक इलाका जोहियावार कहा जाता है और बहुसंख्यक निवासी जोहिया (यौधेय) कहे जाते हैं। कराची के कोहिस्तान में जोहियार रहते हैं, बल्कि उनके सरदार को ‘जोहिया-जोजन्म’ कहा जाता है। अलवर और गुड़गांव के मेव अब भी यौधेय भूमि में ही बसते हैं और उनकी वीरगाथायें सुनकर आज भी रोमांच हो उठते हैं।

• Dahiya: दहिया जाटों का ईरान (फारस) में भी निवास एवं राज्य था, इसके कुछ प्रमाण निम्नलिखित हैं - R. Sankrityayana राहुल सांकृत्यायन) ने लिखा है कि “दहिया लोग उच्च कोटि के घुड़सवार एवं निशाने बाज थे। ईरान में कहे जाने वाले पार्थी, एक दहिया जाति थी।”

External links

See - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahul_Sankrityayan

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References

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