A Freethinking Cultural Nationalist

This book is a living 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 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 Sankrityayan's 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.