Rahul Sankrityayan

Rahul Sankrityayan

Rahul Sankrityayan (1893–1963) was an Indian polymath who is often remembered as the father of Hindi travel writing. He was also known for his role in the revival of Buddhism in India, as co-founder of the Bihar unit of the Communist Party, and a pioneering explorer-traveller. His choice of Hindi for the bulk of his writing marks him as a contributor to a popular progressive intellectual discourse in that language. Apart from his iconic travelogues that record journeys into remote Himalayan regions and across Asia and Europe, he wrote on travel (Ghumakkar Shastr), made significant contributions to history (including the Sahitya Akademi Award winning Madhya Asia ka Itihas), philosophy (Darshan Digdarshan), memoir-writing (Meri Jeevan-Yatra, Mere Asahyog ke Saathi), polemics (Bhago Nahin Duniya ko Badlo, Tumhari Kshaya), biography (of travellers, thinkers, social reformers, political leaders), drama (Bhojpuri), translation (of Tajik novels, as well as The Communist Manifesto), lexicography, critical commentary on and emendation of rare Buddhist philosophical texts recovered from Tibet, and diverse fiction, mostly historical. He was imprisoned for his anti-colonial activism for about three years by the British. In 1963, he was conferred the Padma Bhushan.