Rahul Sankrityayan's Death Anniversary

Rahul Sankrityayan (born Kedarnath Pandey), who passed away on 14 April 1963, in Darjeeling, was an Indian author, essayist, playwright, historian, scholar of Buddhism who wrote in Hindi and Bhojpuri. Known as "father of Hindi travel literature", Sankrityayan played a pivotal role in giving Hindi travelogue a literary 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 in locations like Russia, Tibet, China, Central Asia, etc.

Knowing around 30 languages including English, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Pali, Russian, Arabic, etc., Sankrityayan almost always wrote in Hindi. The honorific mahapandit ("Great scholar" in Hindi) has been applied before his name since his lifetime.

Sankrityayan wrote extensively, his collection of works spanning more than 100 books on various subjects like Indology, Communism, Buddhism, and philology as well as various short stories, novels and plays. He was awarded the 1958 Sahitya Akademi Award for his 2 volume "Madhya Asia ka Itihaas" (History of Central Asia). The Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, the country's third-highest civilian award, in 1963. He died the same year, aged 70.