A Freethinking Cultural Nationalist: A Life History of Rahul Sankrityayan - Hardcover

Chudal, Alaka Atreya

9780199466870: A Freethinking Cultural Nationalist: A Life History of Rahul Sankrityayan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199466874 ISBN 13: 9780199466870

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2016

This book is a life history of Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan (1893-1963), a well-known figure in the field of Buddhist studies and Hindi literature, and is perhaps best known for his adventurous journeys to Tibet in search of lost original Buddhist texts. Sankrityayan is famous as a person having multiple identities, that is, scholar, political activist, Buddhist monk, and communist. This book has made an attempt to view Rahul Sankrityayan as he passes through the struggle of a life of changed identities and relates this to his status as a nationalist. Is there a thread running through Sankrityayans life? Or was he just randomly testing out new values to replace old ones with? This study will not only answer these questions by locating its starting point from an insight that Sankrityayans personality was a product of the renaissance period in Indian history, but will also attempt to delve into the details of just how exactly it managed to fashion his multiple identities. It will observe Sankrityayans life and work critically, then, within the wider frame of the Indian subcontinent during the first half of the 20th century, which is a reflection of the contemporary period of Indian history, and presents us with a multifaceted picture of India itself.

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About the Author:

Alaka Atreya Chudal is a senior lecturer at the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, University of Vienna, Austria.

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