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Remembering Rahula Sankrityayana

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya
Fellow, Pavlov Institute, 98 Mahatma Gandhi Road, Kolkata 700007

Keynote Address to the national workshop on the Life and Works of Mahapandita Rahula Sankrityayana
On 20 February, 2019, held under the auspices of Prof. K. Satchidananda Murty Centre for Studies in Afro-
Asian Philosophies, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.

It is a pleasure to speak about Rahula Sankrityayana (1893 –1963) to an audience consisting

mainly of Andhra Pradesh, more partic; hularly of Guntur. You all know that Rahula was not
just a scholar, a mahapanditae was an activist. He attended the All India Kisan Sabha
Conference at Bezawada (now renamed Vijayawada) on 14-15 March 1944. There was a
cultural meet, dance and theatre from 10 pm on both days. All delegates expected the cultural
troupe from Bengal to steal the show. They thought that the rural people of Andhra were
advanced enough to wave the flag, shouts slogans and muster strong in mammoth rallies.
However, they lagged far behind Bengal in matters of culture. The performance of the Andhra
troupe overwhelmed all. Muzaffar Ahmad and Gopal Haldar, two leading members of the
Bengal delegation, frankly admitted, ‘They [the Andhra artistes] possess the unfathomable
stream (the people) which is the mother of all arts. These workers of Andhra did not go to the
people with their arts, rather they have absorbed their arts from the people. We in Bengal go
to the masses with the middle-class pre-judgments of arts and cannot learn their culture
properly.’ This is what Rahula reports in his autobiography, Meri Jivanyatra (Bangla
translation, Kolkata: Rahula Sankrityayana Janmashatbarsha Kamiti, vol. 3, 1994, p.121).

You all know about Rahula’s unending quest, first as a traditional Vaishnava, then his
conversion to an Arya Samaji, then a Buddhist monk and layman and finally a communist. He
remained a communist to the last day of his life, whether he was a member of the Communist
Party of India or not. He was one of those who belonged, in Marx’s words, to the Party ‘in the
broad historical sense’ (Marx to Freiligrath, 29 February, 1860, Marx-Engels Collected
Works, vol. 41, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1985, 87). I would highlight only a few aspects
of his life and works, for the area is so vast that it cannot be encompassed within one essay or
lecture.

Rahula Sankrityayana is not a name to be forgotten. Not only the Hindi-speaking people but
all those who had read his works in translation, whether in English or in modern Indian
languages, cannot but remember him in gratitude. A prolific writer on at least a dozen
subjects meant for scholars and laymen alike, Rahula led a strange life. Although he had
learnt (or rather, taught himself) no fewer than a dozen languages. He used to write almost
exclusively in his mother tongue. As he often said, it was necessary to write on new subjects
as much as possible in Hindi in order to enrich the language. R.S. Sharma said, ‘. . . Rahulji
strongly felt that no cultural progress could be made unless people were educated through the
medium of their mother tongue. Certainly he could write in English and some other foreign
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languages but he successfully resisted the temptation to be recognised internationally at the

cost of being unknown to the common people in India (‘Mahapandita Rahula Sankrityayana:
A Tribute,’ reprinted in Psyche and Society (Kolkata), vol. 18, no. 2, December 2018, 48).
Besides, being an author in his own right, Rahula was also a translator from Sanskrit and Pali
into Hindi. His selection of Sanskrit poetry, Samskrita Kavyadhara (1955) is a bilingual
edition, is less known than his other translations. However, it is worth remembering because
of the fact that it offers a representative selection of Sanskrit through the ages. His Hindi
translations of two canonical works of the Tipitaka, the Digha Nikaya (The Long Discourses)
and the Majjhima Nikaya (The Middle-length Discourses) with indices and all, have been, and
I hope, are still, useful to the students with little or no Pali at all. His studies in the eighty four
Siddhas first appeared in the Bhagalpur-based Hindi journal, Ganga (January 1933, later
included in his Puratattva-Nibandhavali, Ilahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1958). It was first translated
into English and from English into by Madame L. Morin and Madame Sylvan Levi and
appeared in the premier journal of oriental studies, Journal Asiatique, Tome CCXXV [225].
MDCCCCXXXIV [1934], Octobre-Decembre 1934, 195-208 and 209-230. The essay was
entitled ‘Reserches Bauddhiques. Par le Bhiksu Rahula Sankrityayana (de Benares) I. Les
Origines du Mahayana. II. L’origine du Vajrayana et les 84 siddhas’. It is a masterly guide to
the scholars of Siddha literature. In the course of this research, Rahula came to know about
Sarahapada and his like, particularly those who criticized all non-Buddhist religious
communities and other groups. Instead of translating those verses into modern Hindi, he opted
for old Hindi! Those verses have been translated into several Indian and European languages.
The latest English translation has come out in 2004 (Tantric Treasures, introduced, translated
and annotated by Roger R. Jackson, Oxford: Oxford University Press).

All this, however, pales into insignificance in comparison to the large number of
manuscripts he brought from Tibet. He visited the land of snow several times and
photographed many pages that were not to be brought or to be lent. Unfortunately, Rahula’s
skill as a scholar was far superior to his skill as a photographer. The same was the case with
Giuseppe Tucci, the Italian Indologist, who had ventured to Tibet with the same object in
view. Not all the photos could be properly developed. One remembers D.D. Kosambi’s
frustrated efforts to secure a legible copy of the Subhasita-ratna-kosha, a rare manuscript not
available in India at all (see Kosambi-Gokhale’s edition of this work published in the Harvard
Oriental Series, vol. 42, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1957, xiii-xv). It may be
noted that Kosambi refers to Rahula’s edition and Hindi translation of the Long Discourses
(jointly with Jagadish Kashyap) and The Middle-length Discourses in his Myth and Reality
(Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1962, ix-x).

Rahula’s most popular work has been From Volga to Ganga (Volga se Ganga,1944)
which, I presume, has been translated into almost all modern Indian languages as also in
Burmese, English, Nepalese, and Russian. In addition to telling stories of different periods of
history, it has also given instructions to the readers in philosophy and sociology. His
travelogues, not just of Tibet, but of different parts of India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) are
still found in the hands of the lovers of travel literature. In his personal life, too, Rahula was
also known to be ever restless and indefatigable worker whether in reading and writing or in
organising peasants’ struggles and trade unions. Nepal was his second home which he
cherished throughout his life. Dr Alaka Atreya Chudal has produced some studies on Rahula’s
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life and works. She also traced the course of Rahula’s association with Nepal over the
decades, right from the time when he was a Buddhist layman.

And yet Rahula was intensely patriotic at heart. When he was in the former Soviet
Union he came to know of the imminent transfer of power from the British Raj. He felt an
intense desire to be on the Indian soil when such an epoch-making event would take place. So
he left his wife and son on 5 July 1947. Unfortunately the ship did not reach Bombay (now
Mumbai) before 17 August, two days after the declaration of independence.

Peculiarly enough, he did not remain in Delhi or Patna or Lucknow, but started
travelling to meet his old friends and acquaintances. He was found in Cuttack (Odisha),
staying at the house of Justice Harihara Mahapatra. He joined others to witness the
performance of an Odiya play, Raktamati (Sanguine Soil). Kalicharan Pattanayak reports all
this in his book, Kumbharachakra (The Potter’s Wheel), Cuttack: Cuttack Student Store,
1975, 312).

I have mentioned only a few events in Rahula’s life. In fact, his life was so eventful
that it is impossible to do justice to all of them. No two persons, I am afraid, would agree
which are more significant than others. So, let me conclude with one question: Why is Rahula
worthy to be remembered? Here, too, the answer will vary from person to person, depending
on his or her propensities. I can only tell you my personal view and that too in relation to my
debt to Rahula.

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Right from Shankaracharya’s and Jayadeva’s hymns to the Ten Incarnations, dasha-avataras,
we Indians, born in non-Buddhist families, were taught that the Buddha was indeed an
incarnation of Vishnu; his only quarrel with Hinduism was the custom of animal sacrifice.
Otherwise, he was all Hindu. Thus, the Buddha was made to appear as the embodiment of
non-injury (ahimsa), more particularly of compassion, karuna. How this was to be reconciled
to the violent actions of other avataras was left unanswered (think of the man-lion, the Rama
with his axe which was supposed to have annihilated the warrior class, not once or twice but
twenty one times, and finally the tenth incarnation, Kalki, riding a horse with a naked sword
in his hand). Whatever that may be, by representing the Buddha as merely a kind-hearted
person, the intellectual side of the man was consciously kept out of sight. And yet, as D.D.
Kosambi pointed out, the Buddha had provided ‘a startlingly modern view of political
economy. To have propounded it at a time of Vedic yajna to a society that had just begun to
conquer the primeval jungle was an intellectual achievement of the highest order’ (The
Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline, Delhi: Vikas, 1965/1972, 113.
Emphasis added.).

What Rahula succeeded in doing was to place before his readers another Buddha, a
Buddha unknown to all but a few. This Buddha was an original thinker who spoke of the Four
Noble Truths, of the Eight- Fold Way, and last but not least, of the Doctrine of Discontinuous
Continuity or the Concatenation of Cause and Effect (paticca-samuppada in Pali, pratitya-
samutpada in Sanskrit). No doubt, European scholars had also waxed eloquent particularly on
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the concept of the causality latent in the last. T.W. Rhys Davids’s remarks still ring in the ears
of the reader:

It is only in the Buddhist Nikayas that we come up against the actual effort itself of the
human mind to get at a more scientific view of the world order, – an effort which is
marked with the freshness and vigour of a new fetch of intellectual expansion, and the
importance and gravity of which is affirmed with the utmost emphasis, both in the
earliest records and in the orthodox literature of ten centuries later. (Introduction to the
Maha-nidana-suttanta, Dialogues of the Buddha, Part II, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1910, 48).

What Rahul did more was to make this doctrine central to the teachings of the Buddha
and expound it in an extremely lucid manner in his works. At the same time, he opposed the
views of Dr S. Radhakrishnan who tried his best to make the Buddha appear as a good Hindu
and his ideas perfectly compatible with the Hindu view of life. On the other hand, Rahula in
his explication of the Buddhist philosophy emphasized the difference rather than the
agreement between the two (Bauddha Darshana, Ilahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1977, 48). In fact, I
would like to see these works translated into all Indian languages, as also in English. Rahula
never underplayed the Buddha’s atheism. The verse he liked most in Dharmakirti’s
Pramanavarttika, runs as follows:

Accepting the authority of the Veda and someone as the creator, the desire of getting
merit through the holy dip, the vanity of casteism and torturing the body to redeem the
sins – these are the five characteristics of stupidity. (Quoted in Rahul Sankrityayan,
‘Buddhist Dialectics’, in: Buddhism: The Marxist Approach, New Delhi: People’s
Publishing House, 1978, 8)

Rahula’s attitude towards Communism vis-à-vis Buddhism was also radically

different from Babasaheb Ambedkar’s. When Ambekar decided to become a Buddhist, he left
all his earlier beliefs behind. With Rahula, the case was not so. As he boldly declared, even
after becoming a Marxist he had not given up his claim to be a disciple (chela) of the Buddha
(Vaijnanik Bhautikvad, Ilahabad: Adhunik Pustak Bhavan, 1974, 44) . He found so much in
common between the views of the Buddha and those of Marx, despite many points of
difference between them that he could carry on the heritage of both with perfect ease. This is
not equating the Buddha with Marx, nor thinking in terms of synthesis. He was highlighting
those aspects of the Buddha’s teachings that could be of help and use even today.

As to the relevance of Rahula’s thoughts in India today, I would like to draw your
attention to an article, Bharatiya Jibanmein Buddhivad (Rationalism in Indian life), included
in his Puratattva-Nivandhavali, and a small book – practically a collection of short essays –
entitled Dimagi Gulami (The Slavery of the Brain, 1956). They powerfully expound the
basics of rationalism, criticises Gandhism and pleads for freethinking. I hope this essay and
the book have been translated into Telugu. If not, someone must do it now, at this very
moment, when the forces of regression, irrationalism, obscurantism and communalism are
threatening to overshadow the positive heritage of India. I would like to see these works
translated into all Indian languages, as also in English.
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Secondly, what can Rahula teach us, the writers, in India today? His style, I would like
to assert, should be our model, for it is worth emulating for all who aim at communicating to
their readers rather than impressing them with their learning. Rahula avoided writing very
long sentences; he preferred to employ, as a rule, common, everyday words and expressions
that would be readily understandable even to those who had no opportunity to receive what is
called ‘higher education’. Yet he never diluted the contents or resorted to oversimplification.
This is true not only of his Hindi works but also his Sanskrit writings, even the Introductions
to the texts of Dharmakirti and others he edited. The short essays written during the 2500th
birth anniversary of the Buddha, later collected into Mahamanava Buddha (1956), is a classic
example of Rahula’s style at its best. Those who write with a specific view, namely, to change
the world, must adopt this style of writing and consciously eschew deliberate obfuscation or,
to put it simply, learn to write Plain English or Telugu, Bangla or Hindi, or whichever
language they write in.

For all these reasons I believe that by remembering Rahula we can both enrich
ourselves and, at the same time, continue the struggle against the forces of reaction in order to
achieve peace and progress, the two goals he never lost sight of in his life.

Thank you all.