Traveller on the Silk Road: Rites and Routes of Passage in ...

Traveller on the Silk Road 37

China Report 47, 1 (2011): 37–58

CHINA REPORT 47 : 1 (2011): 37–58SAGE Publications Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DCDOI: 10.1177/000944551104700103

Traveller on the Silk Road: Rites and Routes of Passage in Rahul Sankrityayan’s Himalayan Wanderlust∗

Bharati Puri

In his quest to travel further and to learn more, Rahul Sankrityayan assiduously collected and collated tomes of invaluable information in his many narratives landscaping the Himalayas. He travelled ubiquitously—his journeys taking him to different parts of India, including Ladakh, Kinnaur and Kashmir. The gaze of this inveterate traveller stretched to Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Persia, China and the Soviet Union. From his several trips to Tibet, sometimes in the guise of a Buddhist monk, he transported with him valuable manuscripts in Pali and Sanskrit, as also some cultural relics and paintings. According to accounts, Sankrityayan brought back 22 mule loads of books and paintings, from Tibet to India. Most of these were earlier housed in the libraries of Vikramshila and Nalanda Universities, but were taken to Tibet in the 12th century by fl eeing Buddhist monks. The journeys that Sankrityayan made culminated in a variety of writings—travelogues, folklore, fi ction, drama and essay. In a rare combination, he straddled a range of disciplines—anthropology, history, philosophy, Buddhism, Tibetology and politics. Weaving history as fi ction, Sankrityayan created a world fashioned by his unique unusual command over various languages—Tibetan, Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi amongst others, in raconteurs refl ecting the many radical departures of his eventful life.1 In his lesser known work evocative of Kinnaur, ‘Kinnar Desh Mein’

∗Excerpts from Rahul Sankrityayan’s Ghumakkad Shastra and Kinnaur Desh Mein have been translated by the author and cited as GS and KDM respectively in the article. The author takes responsibility for translation from Hindi into English of these two writings of Rahul Sankrityayan.

The expressions wandering/roaming have been used almost synonymously in the text. I acknowledge Machwe’s {(1978) 1998} application of the latter phrase although I tend to use the phrase wandering more with one exception in the text where I use both phrases together as either/or.

I would like to thank Prof. G.P. Deshpande, who urged me to read Sankrityayan.

1 Selected important works by Rahul Sankrityayan (publication details not being included):

Travelogues: Meri Lanka Yatra, Meri Japan Yatra, Iran Yatra, Meri Ladakh Yatra, Meri Tibbat Yatra, Kinnar Desh Mein, Meri Europe Yatra, Asia Ke Durgam Bhu-Khandon Mein, Chin Mein Kya Dekha (What I saw in China).In Bhojpuri: Teen Natak, Panch Natak, Nayiki Dunia.

at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on September 11, 2016chr.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://chr.sagepub.com/

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(Sankrityayan 2010b), Sankrityayan weaves a narrative through the lens of history, ethnography, religion, culture and politics in this trans-Himalayan region, locating in 1948, a historical discourse integrating various strands of identity, culture and livelihood in this marginalized world. By invoking his ‘Treatise on Travelling/wandering/nomadism’ or ‘Ghumakkad Shastra’(Sankrityayan 2010a) as the methodology, in a trope bridging autobiography, social history and travelogue, Sankrityayan provides a multi-textured narrative of silk-routes crisscrossing the Hindustan–Tibet Road (Briggs as cited in Marshall 2004: 166),2 instituting an entirely new genre of travel writing in the twentieth century Hindi world.

Travelling/wandering/nomadism is not mere means—it is also an end. (Sankrityayan 2010a: 88)

Sair kar duniya ki gafi l zindgani phir kahanZindgani gar kuchh rahi to naujavani phir kahan(Oh you ignorant and idle, go and travel all over the wide world. You are not going to have another life for this. Even if you live longer, this youth is not going to return. (Ismail Meruthi as quoted in Sankrityayan (1948) 2010a: 12)

What is the purpose, I wonder, of all this restlessness? I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias. (Seth 1983: 35)

On Tibet: Tibbati Bal-Siksha, Pathavali (3-Volumes), Tibbati Vyakaran (Tibetan Grammar), Tibbat May Budh Dharm.Novels: Baisvin Sadi, Jine Ke Liye, Simha Senapathi, Jai Yaudheya, Bhago Nahin: Duniya Ko Badlo, Madhur Svapna, Rajasthani Ranivas, Vismrit Yatri, Divodas, Vismriti Ke Garbh Me.Short Stories: Satmi Ke Bachche, Volga Se Ganga, Bahurangi Madhupuri, Kanaila Ki Katha, Prabha, Mehrarun Ke Durdasa.Autobiography: Meri Jeevan Yatra (6-Volumes)Biography: Sardar Prithvi Singh, Naye Bharat Ke Naye Neta (2-Volumes), Bachpan Ki Smritiyan, Atit Se Vartaman, Stalin, Lenin, Karl Marx, Mao-Tse-Tung, Jinka Main Kritagya, Vir Chandrasingh Garhwali, Simhala Ghumakkar Jaivardhan, Kaptan Lal, Simhal Ke Vir Purush, Mahamanav Buddha, Buddhacharya, Baba Saheb Dr. Ambedkar.Culture and Society: Mansik Gulami, Rigvedic Arya, Ghumakkar Shastra, Darshan Digdarshan, Dakkhini Hindi Ka Vyaakaran, Puratatv Nibandhawali, Manav Samaj, Sone Ki Dhala, Shaitan Ki Ankh, History of Central Asiaý, Soviet Madhya Asia, Vijnaptimatratasiddhisastra, Soviet Nyaya Aur Radek Adi Ka Mukadama, Administrative Dictionary (1600-Administrative Terms), Sabdavatarah, Vishwa Ki Ruparekha, Majjhimapannasakam, Pali Sahitya Ka Itihas, Yatra Ke Panne, Panch Bauddha Darsanika, Vaigyanika Bhautikavadaý, Sahitya Nibandhavali, Dakhunda, Vigrahavyavarttaniý, Doha Kosa, Samyavada Hi kyon?, Jaunasara Deharadun, Abhidharmakosah, Shadi, Vinayasutra, Simhala Ke Vir, Soviet Bhoomi (2-Volumes), Pramanavartikabhashyam, Anatha, Islam Dharma Ki Ruparekha, Sutta Pitaka Ka Majjhima Nikaya, Tumhari Kshaya, Aaj Ki Rajaniti, Dakkhini Hindi Kavyadhara, Sanskrit Pathamala, Rahul Yatravali, Sanskrit Kavyadhara, Mere Asahayoga Ke Saathi, Vividh Prasang, Buddhamatam, Manav Samajam, Bauddha Sanskriti, Rashtrabhasha Hindi, Budh Ka Darshan, Gram Aur Gramin, Maanav Ki Kahani, Akbar, Nirale Hire Ki Khoj, Tibet Mein Sava Baras, Rahul Nibandhavali, Roos Mein Pachis Mass.

2 ‘Covers all aspects of building the road and the reasons why the route from Simla was chosen. Maps of the road are included showing the section completed in 1855, and the section still under construction from near Rampur to Shipki.’ For further details see Marshall (2004: 166).




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…the search for historical truth has much in common with the search for religious truth. (Bray 2001: 44)

…historical documents are necessarily in the hands of others, the Indian elite and the British colonizers who ran, as well as wrote the history of India. (Guha and Spivak 1988: vii)

EARLY YEARS

Born on April 9, 1893, Kedarnath Pande, known more famously by his nom de guerre, Rahul Sankrityayan, was one of the most extensively travelled scholars of India spending over four decades of his life away from home. Married at a very tender age, never to see his fi rst wife. Sankrityayan as a youngster had ‘run away’ from home on two occasions—once when he was only nine and then again at the age of 14, as authenticated in his later accounts where he describes the virtues of travel.

It was the Himalayas more than anything, which lured him. When he was 17, he fi rst, visited Haridwar in the Himalayas. On his return, he began to feel ‘intellectually starved’ and took off once again (Machwe 1998: 14). He left his home in 1910 in the company of sadhus—an interaction that transformed him into a bitter critic of orthodoxy and of blind faith; he is said to have become an atheist and a confi rmed materialist. His philosophical journey, was long and arduous (Machwe 1998: 13). He was also one of the few critics of Gandhi and called him a capitalist agent in his work titled Vaigyanika Bhautikvada; however when Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948, he turned to vegetarianism and quit smoking cigarettes (Machwe 1998: 13). Eventually he also gave a speech invoking Gandhi as a new God and this evocative speech, that he is said to have delivered wearing ochre, was double-edged—he was ex-pressing his loathing of archaic tradition while invoking Gandhi as a new age avatar: ‘All Gods are now with Gandhi Baba. Whoever will offer hashish, wine and sacrifi cial animals will be destroyed. I accurse him.’ (Machwe 1998: 18).

Sankrityayan, in his several journeys sought self-understanding—he found himself at Ujjain, only to feel disgusted with quarrelling ‘big sadhus’ (Machwe 1998: 15); at Parasa monastery in 1914 where he started the lecture and debate society where he eventually organized a meeting against goat sacrifi ce and got beaten up by orthodox priests. He was ‘dubbed’ an iconoclast and non-believer. The period between 1915 and 1922, that Sankrityayan calls the period of New Light, was also the time when he shattered the hopes of his father who had hoped he would become a good householder. He became a rebel instead and as described by Machwe, cooked ‘fi sh in Rajput and Muslim homes’. From 1915 to 1917 he learnt Sanskrit, Arabic and read nationalist history and various theological treatises; he read books critiquing orthodox Hindusim and works written by Christian missionaries criticizing Islam. He also read Maulavi Sanaullah’s Ahle-Hadis and a range of Kadiani journals, described as his ‘fi rst fare’



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(Machwe 1998: 15)—a journey described in the following words: ‘From Vaishnavism to Vairagi Udasi sect, and from this monastic order to Arya Samaj, criticizing caste distinctions, seen as a progressive mental journey towards rationalism’. He wrote about an open theological debate in Jabalpur in 1915, between Maulavis and Aryasamaji pandits—in which he describes how they quoted from texts, and how the discussion went on for two days (Machwe 1998: 15–16). While he was a student at Agra, the Komamatagaru incident took place, in which Indian Sikhs lost their lives, fi ghting British imperialism; in 1916 he decided to pursue his studies in Sanskrit and went to Lahore (Machwe 1998: 16). He had his fi rst encounter with politics in Lahore during the Martial Law regime in April–May 1919 when a new wave of hatred for British rule was manifesting itself (Machwe 1998: 17); traveller’s itch which has been a perennial strand in Rahul Sankrityayan’s life, overtook him again at the age of 27 in 1920. This time round he travelled to Benares and Sarnath; to Kasiya the place of Buddha’s Parinirvana; to Lumbini and Kapilvastu. He made public speeches of discontent against foreign rule and was arrested on January 31, 1922, only to get in, smuggled copies of Trotsky’s Bolshevism and World Revolution. While in Buxar prison, he composed political bhajans in Sanskrit, singing them to fellow jail mates—Shrunu Shrunu re panth, Ahamika nahyekaki (‘Listen O traveller, I am not an isolate’) (Machwe 1998: 18). Eventually, the urge to travel was so immense, that even though his heart-broken father implored him to return home, Sankrityayan ‘decided’ not to return until he turned 50—a resolve he kept (Machwe 1998: 16), and which he perhaps rationalizes in his Ghumakkad Shastra (hereafter cited as GS) (Sankrityayan 2010a: 18).

SUMMARISED TRANSLATION OF SANKRITYAYAN’S GS/‘TREATISE ON TRAVELLING/WANDERING/NOMADISM’

‘Ghumakkar Shastra is a treatise on various aspects of rambling written in 1948 by the scholar–rambler Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan. He perfected wander-mania to an art and “made a philosophy of it”’ (Machwe 1998: 10).

GS institutes a method which must have steered the many landscapes Sankrityayan lays out in his travels texts, as also establishes for the very fi rst time, a shastra or ‘treatise’ for every travelogue possible by inscribing and instituting a unique ethic for ‘travellers/wanderers/nomads’.

The following section is a brief summary comprised of excerpts of Ghumakkad Shastra3 in translation:

The traveller is not of a particular country, caste or creed. The traveller does not believe in any caste or creed. It is important that when one traveller sees another he

3 The author takes responsibility for translation from Hindi into English of Rahul Sankrityayan, Ghumakkad Shastra (2010a), cited as ‘GS’ in this research essay.




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feels a sense of solidarity. The Chinese travellers Fa Hsien (Faxian) and Yuan-Chwang (Xuanzang) were very intimate with people they met. Culture, education and dignity are the special virtues of a traveller. Because he does not believe in hierarchy he can live in Rome as the Romans do. If he is living with farmers he can dress like them. If he is living with a wealthy man he can live like him. If any traveller goes to Assam he must have knowledge of their language (GS: 40).

It is important for a traveller to be musically inclined. This would enable him/her to rise above bookish knowledge (GS: 36). I do not suggest that our travellers should not go to backward regions abroad if they can afford it; they should got to the poorer regions and live with Eskimos in their leather tents and experience the culture. Never-theless, I would still say to the Indian traveller that we have many regions to travel in our own country.

It is not unusual for an Indian traveller to feel disgusted when a European dunks his used spoon into another cup. Our puritanical travellers feel disgusted. But the Indian traveller must also realize that when he digs his nose in front of the European it is a disgusting act. For example Indians’ do not consider it important to wipe their noses with a hankie. This is also something against Puritanism! Similarly people living in far fl ung areas have their own social norms and they could be much more puritanical then ours. There is no one logic ruling social norms. When you go and live in a new place you must remember to copy those who are living there. This makes you less alien in a place (GS: 41).

However, this does not mean that we must gravitate to extremes. To cite a case—a British scholar to comply with local standards married a local girl. I feel that getting married for a traveller is a bad thing. How many places will a traveller get married in, to establish fraternity (GS: 42)?

The most interesting thing is to travel in forgotten (Sankrityayan uses the phrase ‘forested’) regions for education and research. India needs many scholars who are also fi rst rate travellers.

The fi rst time when I went to Tibet in 1926 I was so attracted to their life and to the life of the Tibetan travellers—the nomads. These nomads travelled between Delhi and Manasarovar and some of their sojourns were between Shimla and China. They also acted like traders (GS: 49). I thought I should leave everything, but I could not. What was it that that attracted me to them?

The science of wandering is a universal religion. Anybody can enter this, including women. The man who was ultimately liberal towards women was Buddha. Also, I see it as the biggest benefi t of ‘ghumakkadi’ for women, in that, they can easily come out of their purda (GS: 53–54).

I would like to tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was an old man—he was not an ordinary man. This old man caught sight of a young traveller and called out to him, ‘Hail saint! Come and take a seat’. The young man came and sat with him. There was a fi re burning in front of them. I would like to highlight the virtues of tobacco



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which came from America to remove the boredom from the lives of people—travellers are ever indebted for this ingredient. The senior traveller fi lled his pipe with tobacco and soon both were talking about their sojourns around the world. Soon a third traveller joined them. Conversations between the three ensued. The sun had set and it was about to get dark. The third traveller said to the young one—come on let us go to the banks of the Tungabhadra river. There are three more people like us there. The young man bid farewell to the old man and went off with the third. Would you like to ask the religion of these three? The religion of these three was the religion of wandering. However, they did have their individual religions, which they believed in. The senior traveller was a Muslim fakir. He was a good traveller. The young traveller was the author of this story and at that time torn between Shankaracharya and Ramanujacharya, trying desperately to rise above notions of untouchability. The third traveller was perhaps a sanyasi (GS: 58). Nobody asked the religion of the other. True travellers know that the world is all play. The best religion that enhances the religion of travelling is Buddhism. Buddhism has no space in it for untouchability or for caste and creed. Features, whether they are Mongolian, Indian, Asian or European, do not bring about any discriminatory tendencies in self. Buddhism is like an ocean that can assimilate many rivers into itself (GS: 59).

A wanderer always remains unattached and unaffected even though he has a lot of love for his fellow men. It is this love alone that makes him accumulate a range of memories and nostalgia. He does not go anywhere to meet people. During his travels the traveller sees many new things. He can also see these in empty moments through his pensive eye. The wanderer’s memoir’s are of cities like London and Moscow and villages in Tibet where he had once lived… One particular night Sankrityayan reached a village during sunset and spent his night in the house of a fellow poor man because wealthy people did not want him. When he left in the morning he gave whatever he could afford to give to the family but lived with the feeling that he had not given enough (GS: 94).

While the traveller is accumulating his memories in a diary the question is what would he do with his diary and where would he keep it safe? This is not a diffi cult thing. The traveller can accumulate all sorts of things—books of historical importance, paintings or sculptures and at the appropriate time get them to the appropriate place. When I was wandering about, had I worried about where I would place the things I was accumulating, I can only imagine the kind of remorse I would have felt today. I bought old pictures in Tibet and books as well. On my fi rst journey back from Tibet I came back with 22 mules loaded with books and other articles (GS: 95). (Towards the end of his magnum opus, he writes that) The ‘Treatise on travel/wandering/nomadism’ is coming to an end. By that it is not meant that there is a closure. The cult of wandering is older than the treatise! Nobody understood its signifi cance, but the oldest document available on this is in the Pratimoksha Sutras of Buddha which are of historical value. Whatever the case, I can only humbly submit




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that this is the fi rst time the Treatise on wandering has been pondered upon. I can only hope that my effort in this direction will be taken up as a project by generations to come (GS: 96).

INTERPRETING GS

GS comes forth as ‘a unique work of its kind in any Indian language and is a forceful document manifesting an indomitable spirit’ (Chatturvedi 2005: 1407).4 In his GS Sankrityayan does not advocate: ‘…romantic escapism, but chalks out the systematic

4 Chatturvedi 2005: 1407.

Ghumakkar Shastra is a treatise on various aspects of rambling written in 1949 by the great scholar–rambler Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan. Rahul had an insatiable urge for wandering in the most improbable terrains within the country and outside. He devoted decades of his chequered career to rambling and attributes all that he achieved in life to this wander-mania. He perfected the art of rambling to such an extent that he could devise a science out of his rich experiences gathered during his marathon ramblings. To Rahul, rambling is the greatest of all religions, a universal religion that has existed for ever and has inspired generation after generation of people who yearn to know more and more. (Chaturvedi 2005: 1407)

Further:

A rambler alone can know people at large in their natural surroundings and can hope to delve deeper into their psyche. He naturally gets attracted to the ways, living patterns, languages, habit, social practices and the thought processes of people in all the lands he happens to visit. He identifi es himself closely with their lot and becomes one of them. These fascinations liberate him from narrow personal bonds and worries and he rises above them. He acquires a carefree disposition and the habit of adjusting with whatever circumstances he is placed in, welcome or adverse. Rahul attributes his writings to the vast experiences of men of myriad natures, of various lands and communities and used to different patterns of living. He declares in one context: ‘My wanderings obliged me to wield a pen and my style just moulded itself.’∗ ‘The gateway to the world of creativity was thrown open for me by my thirst for wandering and I am obliged, therefore, to this urge of mine.’∗∗ A rambler is therefore a liberated soul while still living in fl esh and blood. His knowledge of men and matters grows richer day by day and he develops a spontaneous sense of fraternity with the whole world. Coming into contact with men and women of diverse natures, thinking and mental attainments, he acquires a tolerance of others viewpoints, gets mellowed in the process and sheds his prejudices. He thus fl owers into a humanist in the real sense. He is always alert, agile and on the, move. Inertia becomes something alien to him ‘charaiveti charaiveti’ becomes his life’s motto, and so on. His appeal to the youth, therefore, is simple yet forceful. “Man is born but once and youth, too, is a one-time phenomenon. Young men and women who have guts, who are adventuresome and who are gifted with an indomitable spirit should never lose this unique opportunity. Gird up your loins, O potential ramblers! The whole world fondly awaits you with open arms! (Chatturvedi 2005: 1407–408)

∗Translation as in Chatturvedi (2005: 1407) of Rahul Sankrityayan, Asia Ke Durgam Bhukhandon Mein.

∗∗Translation as in Chatturvedi (2005: 1407) of Sankrityayan, GS.



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programme of non-attachment and simultaneously reading every letter of this open book called life. His early apprenticeship as a Sadhu, his later Arya Samaj background and still later his active participation in Kisan Sabha politics, combined with his sojourns in Tibet and Soviet Russia (two totally contradictory places) equip him to be an ideal ‘wanderer’ (ghumakkar). So in his preferences of personages, whom he admired, and whose eulogizing biographical sketches he wrote, the adjectives Ghumakkar-Raj (nomad–supremo), Ghumakkar (roamer, vagrant), Mahaparyatak (great traveller), Paryatak (traveller) and Phakkar (unwordly) occur many times. The friends of this ‘liberal humanist and an uncompromising non-conformist’ (Machwe 1998: 8) are not only sadhus, but ‘scholars, men belonging to all faiths—Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, Christian, Sikh and even atheist’ (Machwe 1998: 39).

The dialectics of wandering/travelling in Sankrityayan show deep impressions of Marxism, Buddhism and Nationalism. According to Machwe:

In his thinking as well as his life-style…was a synthesis and balance of two con-tradictory pulls, in every direction. Though he had a traditional Brahmanic men-tal make-up, he countered it with his deep devotion to Buddhism; orthodoxy and polytheism were countered by Arya Samaji enthusiasm for anti-idol worship and belief in the fi nality of the testimony of the Vedas. He later repudiated it. He studied classical Sanskrit and Arabic from pandits and Maulavis, and Pali from Buddhist monks in India, Ceylon, Nepal and Tibet; yet he kept his mind free from getting conditioned entirely by those moulds of ancient grammarians and Sutrakars. On the contrary, he strongly advocated the cause of ‘the broken languages’ spoken by illiterate masses, the peasants and workers. He consciously declassed himself. A strong individualist breaking all family bonds at an early age, he became the mouthpiece and propagandist of the new ideology of ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’. He was very critical of maths (mine: Hindu religious theocratic organizations) and monasteries, close and secret associations of sadhus and the Lamaistic monopoly–theocracy. He was not religious in the conventional sense, yet he had…a deep undercurrent of faith and strong love for Indian cultural values….this eternal tug-of-war in Rahul’s restless soul gave an extraordinary quality to his writings in Hindi. (Machwe 1998: 37–38)

Theoretically, he never seems to have sought to resolve the dialectics of the many infl uences that he was a part of and which must be part of him; but he never actually felt any opposition in them, to deter him from his fi rst calling in life—wanderlust. Says Machwe:

…his style is uneven, but the reader is never bothered by lack of linguistic embellishments, because he is constantly faced with some surprising, shocking, revelation—an idea or a description which had never occurred to him before. While the common readers imagination is all the time tickled, Rahul goes on




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writing page after page of information, which otherwise would have been very dull reading in another context. The reader goes on exploring along with Rahul new layers of cultural anthropology, archaeology, sociology, theology, linguistic and literary fi ndings. (Machwe 1998: 38)

Sankrityayan’s works draw through travel writing, tools for understanding and repre-senting diverse range of subjects and issues—ethnography, politics, sacred geography, society, religion and culture. What distinguishes his writing from other writings of the same period is that, his accounts unravel through testimonies of locals, explorers, servants and savants of the empire, monks and fellow travellers, a current history and historiography of areas he travelled in/through. In Kinnaur Desh Mein (hereafter KDM), for instance, Sankrityayan was in some discreet way, championing the voices, texts and imaginary of the lost and forgotten voices from the margins, while taking into cognizance texts and contexts of rural politics, state formation, Nationalism, identity/ties in a freshly-born India. His raconteur lays bare tracts of land holdings and need for land reforms while bringing into play the powerful stronghold and stranglehold of religion and the incremental deterioration of religion and the politics of its vitalization in modernity that was destined to be an inseparable legacy of India’s new social and political order for a long time.

The ‘rituals of democratic habit’ (McMillen: 2007) are a fundamental issue for Sankrityayan and it is refreshing to note how he sometimes contextualized in his writing, policy concerns while not making a mockery of, or patronizing, the history/s and culture/s of regions and people he came in contact with. He constantly challenged dominant ideas and their infl exible hold while allowing the subaltern to speak, which explains further, the uneven style of his writing. His writings contest such notions as that the western world is more civilized, democratic and developed than the non-western world, or that the present era is more modern and progressive than the earlier historical period of British colonialism in India. His writings suggest the ‘blind spots of history’ (Guha and Spivak 1988: 47) never feigning ignorance of

…gaps, absences, lapses, ellipses, all of them symbolic of the truths that historical writing is after all writing and not reality, and that as subalterns their history as well as their historical documents are necessarily in the hands of others, the Indian elite and the British colonizers who ran, as well as wrote the history of India. (Guha and Spivak 1988: vii)

Typically, travel documents in the nineteenth century, while illustrating the great Himalayas, barely conceal imperial aspirations and fantasies of exploration and conquest that were shaping the formulation of travel as a modern experience and as a rite/right of passage (Gilbert and Johnston 2002). Travel, text and empire held hands as they held forth a body of literature as embodied knowledge. In Sankrityayan’s words:



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A writer must exercise great restraint while recounting his narrative. To make their writing attractive, many travel writers give accounts full of impossible, illogical and esoteric things in the name of mysticism. If a traveller falsifi es his account, he is going against the grain of the religion/creed he belongs to—the creed of travellers. Today, the press is in the hands of moneyed classes that try hard to make a fool of people... I would like to recount my own experience—The editor of the London Daily Mail used his own imagination to describe my travels in Tibet. He wrote: ‘He (Sankrityayan) was travelling in the deep Tibetan forests when bandits sur-rounded him. He was about to draw his sword when a tiger came forth roaring out and the bandits ran for their lives’. When their offi ce sent that letter to me, I cut out the fabricated parts mentioning that there are no jungles in Tibet and neither are there any lions. I noticed the next day that although the article looked shorter, those lines I had deleted were still present. The Daily Mail was trying to kill two birds with one single stone—it was trying to prove me to be dishonest and at the same time propagating a belief based on fabrication. (GS: 82–83)

Canonizing beliefs of an inherently irrational Asian mind and against Western rationality by improvising narratives around this belief in the name of history, invoke question upon question in a single stark question posed by Mahabubani: ‘Can Asians Think?’ He articulates: ‘Western intellectuals are convinced that their minds and cultures are open, self-critical, and, in contrast to ossifi ed Asian minds and cultures, have no “sacred cows”’ (Mahabubani 2002: 10). In this, Sankrityayan’s writings can be seen as fulfi lling the onerous task of removing blind spots in history and providing a historical context its legitimate meaning/s.

CHEQUERED BOARD OF IMPERIAL ASPIRATIONS AND DESIRES: PROVIDING CONTEXT TO SANKRITYAYAN

The period from 1850 to 1950 was the heyday of Western Missions to Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Pacifi c (Bray 2001: 21). ‘At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Tibet was an unknown and mysterious land. …It was under the suzerainty of China, a land whose power was still unknown. The British watched the northern part of Bushahr very carefully. This was one rationale behind the construction of the Hindustan Tibet Road…’ (Sankrityayan 2010b: 324, henceforth cited as KDM). By late nineteenth to twentieth century the romance of Tibet as Shangri-la was passé and emphasis drew to the darker aspects of Tibetan culture as also it’s ‘need’ for getting a Christian enlightenment. Records and narratives that show the signifi cant role of writings that helped in the construction of the Himalayan frontiers as symbolic and geographical spaces barely hide imperial aspirations to create amicable relations with Tibetans, and Christianity a foothold.




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For many reasons, the idea of crossing the frontier was powerful and formidable at the same time. Accounts show how at this time, ‘Romance lay not in the original culture of Tibet but rather in the heroic nature of the missionary struggle in an exotic environment’ (Bray 2001: 22). Eventually crossing the frontier proved an impossible task and interim missions were set up on Tibet’s borders in the second half of the nineteenth century. ‘No mission society was able to establish a lasting base in central Tibet, but several set up stations along Tibet’s southern borders in Ladakh, Lahaul, Kinnaur (Bray 1992: 369–75)5 and Kalimpong, and in the Tibetan/Chinese border regions adjoining Kham and Amdo’ (Bray 2001: 21). Crossing over remained largely a pipedream as many of the missions chafed on the borders, waiting for the right moment to head into Tibet. Kinnaur like many other regions became the chessboard for the fruition of this aspiration. It was in this period that many missionaries came and created meaningful lives for themselves while impacting deeply the ethos and life of the people of Kinnaur. Moravian missionaries came to the Himalayan states in the middle of the nineteenth century with the intention of propagating the Christian faith. They remained there under very tough climatic conditions for nearly a century (Tobdan and Dorje 2008). It was in 1865 that the Moravian missionaries established the mission station in Pooh, in Kinnaur (Bray 2001: 23–24).

During this time, Moravian missionaries translated the Bible into Tibetan distribut-ing these to the inhabitants of border areas as also to travellers coming from Central Tibet. However, they could only briefl y foray across the border (Bray 2001: 24). The Church of Scotland established missions in Darjeeling and Kalimpong. One of its best known missionaries John A. Graham, was born in Kinnaur and later became the founder of ‘Graham Homes’ and the editor of Tibet Mirror (Bray 2001: 24). In the 1930s, ‘CIM (China Inland Mission) missionary J.H. Edgar took the view that Chinese control over central Tibet would be preferable from the missionary point of view because it would break the power of monasteries and make possible for missionaries to work in comparative safety’ (Bray 2001: 30). While missionaries on Tibetan borders saw themselves as teachers rather than learners, J.A. Graham came across as a rare exception, even writing a work on the possibility of a Universal Religion (Bray 2001: 41–42).

5 Particular page numbers and details as cited in Marshall 2004: 164. This work discusses the failure of missionary activity in Kinnaur and adjacent areas of Tibet. Pooh is on the Upper Sutlej on the Hindustan–Tibet road and information is also provided on cross-border trade between Pooh and Tibet.

Also see the following:

John Bray (1985: 27–75) as cited in Marshall (2004: 164);Bajpai (1981)—Kinnaur, which is situated on Tibetan borders, was formerly accounted as part of the

native state of Bushahr. This book gives an account of Bushahr and its trade history with Tibet;Bajpai, (1991: vi).



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Against this chequered board of imperial aspirations and desires, Sankrityayan’s writings bring forth a perceptive and absorbing account, of the lives and the con-tributions of missionaries who came to stay amongst the inhabitants of the Western Himalayas.

Even though Sankrityayan was not imaginably writing to construct a body of litera-ture as ‘embodied knowledge’ the coherent concealment that he refrained from putting in plain words must be posed in a few questions: how he did manage to reach remote areas where government permission was required? And, how did he fund his many travels? Except for a few mentions of getting government permission particularly for his travel in Kinnaur, few references are provided (KDM: 52). Given below is a brief summary of Sankrityayan’s KDM that attempts to capture the essence of Sankrityayan’s travelogue, foregrounded in the context of other scholars’ writings:

KDM: THE RAJ AND ITS MISSIONS

Moving on the Hindustan–Tibet Road, Sankrityayan reached Thanedar in May 1948, almost a year after India’s independence from the British yoke.

He chalks out in his KDM the region of Kinnaur with its historical links to neigh-bouring regions, by drawing a fascinating and untold history of the region and the areas it encloses. A detailed research on persons he was referring to, are remarkably accurate as any local would vouch for and many minor characters are true to life (I have been able to verify many of these details from my fi eld work in the region). He probes and teases out from varied sources, the very fabric of what must have been the Kinnauri culture and life in 1948.

The gaze of Sankrityayan has focussed many a time on missionaries and their many services in Kinnaur in KDM. It is indeed with much respect and sense of deep appreciation that Sankrityayan highlights their lives. The magic he wove out of their life stories highlights the selfl ess service rendered by missions and missionaries. While he was critical of European Theosophists6 who he says were running miracle shops (KDM: 156) he says it clearly that it would be a pity if religious dogmatism were allowed to overcome us and we fail to recognize the selfl ess service of missionaries or their valuable sacrifi ces.

The remains of many such missionaries remain interred in the region.Recounting the life of Bruski, a German priest who came in 1817 to Cheeni (an

area in Kinnaur), Sankrityayan dwells on the momentous contribution made by him (KDM: 53). The bungalow that Bruski laboured to construct and spent his own money for had been converted into a Dak Bungalow when Sankrityayan visited Cheeni

6 According to Dodin and Räther (2001: 396) the Theosophists had a rather large infl uence upon the West’s image of Tibet described by them by employing the adjective ‘formidable’.




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in 1948. When Bruski died, another priest named Peter took over his work. Bruski had brought apples, apricots, walnuts, plums and pears from Holland to Pooh, which are still grown in the region. In 1948, Bruski’s bungalow was a pale shadow and dim memory of what it must have originally been (KDM: 55–56). Also, the rose bushes and grape vines that Peter later had nurtured had withered just like the pear trees he had grown. In 1912 Mukti Sena freedom fi ghters bought this Bungalow from the Moravian missionaries for ` 1000 and started a hospital. An Anglo-Indian doctor named Samuel Burfoot and his wife worked here for a year. This place was sold to the government in 1919. People in Cheeni remember both Bruski and Peter with a lot of love (KDM: 54). The real contribution made by the Moravian missionaries took a new turn eventually—stones were taken away from the church building to construct the Tehsil offi ce. Sankrityayan says ironically: ‘in no way can we compare either Bruski or the Moravian missionaries to propagandist Mukti Sainiks’ (KDM: 55).

Even earlier, 80 years before Bruski established himself, some other priests/mis-sionaries had made Pooh their home—Pooh is about 48 miles off Cheeni. They opened a school for boys and taught people the craft of sculpting. The Dak bungalow (mine: literally means post bungalow) in Pooh (KDM: 134) was built in 1913 which was almost 14 years prior to when any road was built in the region. Thirty-fi ve (35) to 36 years prior to when this bungalow was built, a Moravian missionary couple came to live here. They lived here and died here, as did half a dozen other missionaries whose unkempt graves even ‘today’ show gothic inscriptions. Until the missionaries stayed here, there was a post offi ce. The resident missionary was a German priest by the name of Marx, who was a gifted sculptor. It was he who taught and trained a generation of sculptors in the region. Like other missionaries he grew a lot of apples and pears. Sankrityayan laments the manner in which these missionaries and their sterling service are forgotten. ‘The Moravian missionaries worked with love in this region and it is our duty to at least protect them in our memory’, he says (KDM: 135). What we see in Kinnaur—apples, grapes, pears, plums, almonds, apricots have all great stories to tell of the Moravian missionaries (KDM: 325).

In 1865 another mission came up about 10 miles away from the Tibetan border and from then until 1918, not only did they spread the message of Christ to the villagers but also made their living conditions better. They opened schools for children and taught women how to knit and made sculptors out of dozens of men. Today none of the Christians are there, but people who studied in missionary schools still knit socks and vests and dozens of sculptors still carry on carving with wood (KDM: 325). Dukpa–Gumba is another place where missionaries opened a school as also a post-offi ce (KDM: 141).

Sankrityayan sums up missions and missionary activities in the western Himalayas: ‘I am of the opinion that “the British missionary institutions were not futuristic, but not that the (missionary activities) were fomenting anti-national agendas”’ (KDM: 293), and that ‘the sterling contributions of Moravian missionaries was far more than the Raj and the British forestry department’ (KDM: 325).



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Called the ‘mistress of the Northern Hills’ by Rudyard Kipling (Kipling 2009), Kotgarh too was another ‘centre for missionary activities’ (KDM: 292–5). A name marked for many reasons in the region, is that of Samuel Evans Stokes and Sankrityayan’s gaze rests on the life and work of this multi-faceted personality.

Stokes came to India in at the age of 21 on January 9, 1904 from Philadelphia, to work at a leprosarium in the Simla Hills in a place called Sabathu, being run by a doctor called Marcus Carleton. A deeply religious Quaker (Wadehra 2000), Stokes then went on to stay as the guest of missionaries in Kotgarh but was not impressed with their lavish lifestyles, living in big bungalows with a fl eet of servants. The sadhus and siddhas of India attracted Stokes. He went into retreat in a cave for seven years in Kotgarh. He married a local pahari girl, was deeply impacted by the Upanishads (KDM: 213) and eventually converted to Hinduism, changing his name from Samuel Evan Stokes to Satyanand Stokes (KDM: 213). ‘… Stokes compared the lifestyle of Christian missionaries and Hindu Sadhu’s and come [sic] to the conclusion that if one has to preach amongst the common masses he [sic] should stay and eat like them. Although the local church was not pleased by the revolutionary thinking… it surely showed that young Mr Stokes was a thinker, bent upon reforming the society’ (Thakur 2008).

‘Stokes was the only American ever to serve on the All India Congress Committee, joining in to sign the manifesto’ (Clymer 1990: 51). While going to Lahore to attend the meeting of the Punjab Provincial Congress Committee, he was arrested on December 3, 1921 at Wagah railway station and charged with sedition and promoting hatred against the British government and also sentenced to imprisonment for six months (Thakur 2008). Described variously—as an ‘idealist, rebel, visionary, social reformer, ascetic and political worker’ (Wadehra 2000) and a ‘khadi clad American’ (Sharma 1999) about whom Gandhi remarked: ‘as long as we have an Andrews, a Stokes, a Pearson in our midst, so long it will be ungentlemanly on our part to wish every Englishman out of India. Non-cooperators worship Andrews, honour Stokes’ (Wadehra 2000). Sankrityayan saw Stokes for the fi rst time in the monsoon of 1921 in Bombay (Mumbai); Stokes was dressed in khadi and was delivering a public lecture and recounts a line from his fi ery speech: ‘from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari (mine: Cape Comorin), India should be dressed in khadi’ (KDM: 214).

Stokes was many things to the people of Kotgarh. He was a social reformer as also the key agent in abolishing begar (forced labour) from Himachal. He opened a school in 1923, which laid great emphasis on women’s education and horticulture. The fi rst generation of horticulturists were born out of this system of education (Thakur 2008). ‘He came to proselytize but himself became a Hindu’ (KDM: 214). He grew about 42 varieties of apple in his own orchard that he had collected from over the world. Sankrityayn says that ‘By introducing and promoting apple cultivation in Kotgarh, Stokes lived up to the spirit of being an earnest missionary’ (KDM: 214).




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KDM: PROBING THE MANY LANDSCAPES AND PANORAMAS OF ‘GHUMAKKADI’ IN THE TRANS-HIMALAYAS: DECONSTRUCTING

SANKRITYAYAN’S ETHNOGRAPHIC NOTES

The religion, the history of which is underplayed in Sankrityayan’s KDM specifi cally is Islam in the Himalayan region of Himachal. Can this be seen as a failure of this region to somehow not allow a complete social assimilation of Islam? And why? These questions do not receive any direct answers in KDM. Recounting one of his journeys in the region Sankrityayan says he saw some Gujjar (pastoral nomads who are largely Muslims) men and women who were moving towards higher pastures in summer. Seeing them, Sankrityayan’s horseman commented:

We have vowed to cleanse the Himalayas of Muslims. The few Muslims here have already converted to Hinduism. They were commanded ‘Convert or go to Pakistan’. To which they responded ‘We will not go to Pakistan. All our generations have spent their lives moving up and down these mountains. We will do what you say. (KDM: 8–9)

In his analysis to this appraisal, Sankrityayan evaluates and generalizes Hindus to be humanists who believe in the policy of live and let live [?]. ‘Hindus may have a thousand fl aws which includes that of becoming animal-like when in anger; they are peace loving lot’ (KDM: 9).

Ironically, even today the Muslims in Himachal are a small community, who unlike the Buddhists, have a negligible societal presence.

Exploring the variety of Buddhists abounding in the region and their assimilation, Sankrityayan draws attention to Gyagar Khampas (KDM: 34–35). Kham is an area in Tibet and people of this region may have come as nomads over Changthang7 to India. Gyagar is the Tibetan word for India. Therefore, Gyagar Khampa means Khampas of India [!]. In his linguistic familiarity with the region Sankrityayan makes the use of local pahari colloquial words like uttpatang (wayward) and uery–parey (here and there; somewhere here) interspersed with a mix of Urdu and Hindi. He also understands with great refi nement expressions that convey insider/outsider denominations. These come out in KDM when Sankrityayan employs expressions like Kinnaura/Kocha (terms to describe a person originally from Kinnaur versus an outsider or non–Kinnaura) or in descriptions of Muslims as kha–che (KDM: 8, 11, 119). Many of these expressions are also subtle derogations of sorts, which bring out subtle social quarrels and hegemonic class/social structures in Himachali society, while stereotyping ‘the other’.

Reporting further on stereotyping, Sankrityayan gives details about the Gyagar Khampas near Sarahan just beyond Cheeni Tehsil, who seemed to be Khampa neither

7 A region in the Tibet and Ladakh borderlands.



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by clothes nor language to Sankrityayan. Sankrityayan tried to unearth more and being a polyglot spoke to some Khampa children in Bhoti (Tibetan) language. Hearing his pure Lhasa accent they were drawn to him. Kinnauras in the region who heard him talk Tibetan were shocked that an ‘educated’ and ‘civilized’ man like Sankrityayan could speak Tibetan with such fl uency. Sankrityayan comments: ‘the surprise was mine, because these Kinnauras are stuck in a web woven by Brahmins, yet always seek the Lamas when they want benefi t from Buddhism’ (KDM: 35). The Khampa nomads described in KDM have tough lives and move between the Changthang region of Ladakh and Tibet. In characteristic style Sankrityayan romanticizes: ‘I wish I were twenty—I would have requested this young friend here—Friend, take me with you. I may never be your legitimate brother but at least we could live with the same wife (mine: hinting at polyandry). We would traverse the broad plains of Changthang to reach Kham’. However he rationalizes his desire in understanding that he was now 55 and not 20 years old. Interestingly, in accounts given of polyandry, there is a distinct pejoration attached in most Western accounts. Sankrityayan’s is not only refreshingly different, but he also redeems the ethic of travel writing, avoiding an ethnographic bias.

Emphasizing the contributions of Dignag, Dharmakirti, Nagarjun, Chandrakirti, Asang and Vasubandhu (Buddhist scholars/Pundits), Sankrityayan says that without understanding their thought and philosophy, it would be hard to understand the highest fl ight of ‘Indian’ imagination (KDM: 160). However, he notes with criticality what he describes as the ignorance of the great Tibetan traditions, by commenting wryly on the ‘deep ignorance’ (KDM: 145) brought about by some of the ‘great teachers’ living at the time in this region.

Commenting from Pooh he says: ‘People here are not educated but untouchability is not practiced and caste system is not prevalent. The religion here is representative of the highest ethics and philosophy. However, lack of education is deeply felt’. Sankrityayan comments on the lack of post offi ces and schools (KDM: 43). This neglected region in Himachal needs the following—fi ve schools and three post offi ces (KDM: 150). Sankrityayan even anticipated hydel projects in 1948. Development was important to him and so he asks: ‘When will this entire region sparkle with lights produced by hydel projects?’ In this he gives reference to ingenious methods being adopted by locals to generate electricity. Sankrityayan met a brilliant and hardworking person by the name of Khushi Ram who understood the importance of ecological industrialization in the Himalayas. Khushi Ram had harnessed power from a fast fl owing stream to run his fl our mill as also to provide some electricity for his house and for his radio batteries. In time he wanted to make his project larger (KDM: 285–86).

Speaking on unemployment in Himalayas he observed that unemployment was increasing in the region: ‘Himachal (then, province of Himachal Pradesh) is only four months old, but the edifi ce that is being built is both weak and corrupt. People are commenting that the kings were far better than the current government’ (KDM: 284).




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As a strategist Sankrityayan focuses on the Kullu–Lahaul–Ladakh road:

Today we are sending our soldiers by this road to protect Ladakh. This road goes via Pathankot, Yogendra Nagar (Joginder Nagar today), Kullu, Lahaul to Ladakh. If Pakistan starts a war, Pathankot will be in a perilous situation and in that case both Kashmir and Ladakh will be separated and so will the Kullu region. It is very important that another road be built. Such a road can be made with great ease. There is road between Simla and Narkanda. Kullu has a road about twenty miles. If you construct a road from Narkanda to Kullu this road will prove to be the shortest as also secure. Apart from strategic purposes this road would benefi t traders and farmers from Kullu who can sell their fruit easily. (KDM: 261)

It was about at the same time that Buddhists in Zanskar were being allegedly slaughtered by what Sankrityayan describes as ‘Pakistani fundamentalists’. Thousands of Buddhists along with monks had been murdered in the Zanskar, Nubra and Lamayuru regions. Sankrityayan expresses deep concern about protecting Alchi and Sumra which are repositories of Buddhist art traditions and in the 11th century were considered the Ajanta’s of the Himalayas (KDM: 269–70).

He also commented on the indigenous techniques of beekeeping: Beekeeping was done by what Sankrityayan describes as the Sutlej technique. Hives were created in the walls and they emerged in the spring. That way they ensured that they could get honey twice a year (KDM: 68).8 He also went into a very detailed study on the mineral wealth of Kinnaur and describes the processes of smelting copper and gold panning on the banks of the Sutlej in Morang (KDM: 115). He also provides in his book a very detailed chart of fruits and dry fruits available in the region (KDM: 112).

On pages 333–34 in KDM Sankrityayan insists that songs that are sung in Kinnaur should be collected or they would eventually fade away. In his book he has compiled and translated many of these songs. Interestingly one of the songs—Surajmani—talks of a girl who does not want to get married as she wants to ‘learn the book’ and study and teach the Hindi language. This song highlights language politics and also some of the reasons for the Hindi monopoly of the region. Incidentally, many of these songs are no longer sung in the region.9

In 1948 people of Kinnaur still did not completely comprehend the fact that a big political event had taken place in India. Says Sankrityayan: ‘We have to light the lamp of knowledge/education in all the corners of this region—in every village, every house’ (KDM: 326). Sankrityayan gripes over the creation of islands within regions, and records an event to corroborate his view on why they are not feasible: ‘There was a murder in Thanedar—a man was returning after yeoman service in army and was murdered by local people for money. Seeing the passivity of the police, the murder

8 For further details on indigenous techniques on beekeeping in the region, see Beszterda (2000).9 Corroborated from a pilot work conducted by the author in 2009.



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was reported to the SP of Police in Shimla. The SP was equally passive. “This is not in our Punjab”, he said. Even when he was challenged that “Kotgarh and Thanedar are in Punjab and that inaction would only ensure a rise in crime levels”, the police was still unresponsive for a long while’. Comments Sankrityayan in his farsightedness: ‘This is what happens when islands are made within a region. It was the responsibility of the government of Himachal to dissolve these islands’ (KDM: 290). In his fi rst few observations of the region, he questions the decision on ‘unifi cation’ of Himachal Pradesh—he asks squarely: ‘was the decision based on geography of this region or was it based on natural boundaries, or, was it thanks to the manipulations of British rule?’ (KDM: 5). These are interesting questions because it is hard not to notice, that the processes through which the many small kingdoms were assimilated into the region, which entailed squelching the right to be heard of certain kingdoms that desired to stay autonomous. Bilaspur was one such kingdom, but was eventually assimilated into the hill regions of Punjab and the kingdom of Mandi.

Commenting on this he conclusively says: ‘Today is 14 August 1948. India has been free of the British yoke for 365 days. The British quit India for the fear of “an invisible stick”—neither in joy nor with empathy. Not only did they divide the country but left feuding regions behind. They did believe they could create fi ve or seven Trans-Jordans in India. The Tories and the Labour Party both believed that the Nizam would be useful to them at some time. I would like to take stock of our successes. In a years’ time, India has become more united and stronger. There may be a lot of disagreements and differences in opinion but these have been sorted out by the Congress. If the reins of the country were in the hands of any other party it would have seen the rise of feudal nationalisms and fratricide and in some cases wars between Jats and Sikhs (KDM: 268–69). Defi nitely the Congress protected the country, but leaves much to the imagination as regards development policies.’

CONCLUSION

Sankrityayan’s enthusiasm for fi nding the extraordinary even in commonplace experi-ences is gripping and almost infectious (Machwe 1998: 39). He had a deep impact on a range of people including scholars like Vaidyanath Misra (also called Nagarjuna) a legendary ‘people’s poet’10 as also Gendun Chophel from Tibet.

It could be that in the cosmopolitan Rahul Sankrityayan, who looked to India’s tradition as a source for the revitalization of Indian national consciousness, Gendun Chophel had found a brother; and in the new country he set foot in, with its classical

10 See Jha (2009).




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tradition which had newly attracted a Western scholastic attention and which had become a subject of robust reinvention by local nationalists, Gendun Chophel found the creative grounds which had eluded him thus far. As Tsering Shakya writes, ‘(Gendun Chophel’s) own growing interest in the sources of Tibetan Buddhist tradition and history would have led him to fi nd the India of that period exciting and inspiring’. In coming from Tibet to India in 1937, which the Tibetans looked to as Aryabhumi, land of the Buddha, Gendun Chophel had exchanged one milieu for another, both tied together by a history of spiritual and cultural intercourse, but one that had little bearing on real contemporary terms. And so midway into learning Sanskrit in Lhasa thinking it to be the spoken language in India, Gendun Chophel had to quickly switch to struggling with English when told by Rahul that Sanskrit had long ago disappeared from regular conversations.11

What make Sankrityayan’s works unique is that he travelled in an era when travel was tough, though borders were more porous. Travel today encloses a whole set of new rites/rights of passage that were largely unheard of when Sankrityayan was stricken with variegated wanderlusts. In an age when travel is planned, brokered, salt-less and speedy, the frisson of travel or chafi ng on the borders lose charm—travel metaphors morph sometimes into insignifi cant comments without paying heed to political projections and predilections of a society. Sankrityayan’s landmark sojourns into the highlands of Asia on the Silk Road and Silk Routes and his descriptions of/from small forgotten habitats affords entirely new tropes not only to 20th century Hindi world but also to travel writing as a whole. Travel literature and writing has grown as a discipline blurring disciplinary lines;12 in this, writings of Rahul Sankrityayan like KDM stand as

11 ‘Chophel began life as a Buddhist monk but evolved into a scholar of Tibetan history and a political activist during his extended visit to India in the 1930s, where he became inspired by Gandhi’s revolt. He decided to travel to India after coming into contact with Rahul Sankrityayan, an Indian researcher of ancient Buddhist texts in Tibet. Surprisingly, Sankrityayan was also a Marxist revolutionary who fought for Indian independence.’ Reference from Proyect (2007).

For further details on Chophel see “Gendun Chophel” in references.12 ‘Methods for Teaching Travel Literature and Writing: Exploring the World and Self discuss how and

why they have integrated travel literature and writing into their courses. Subjects range from the study of travel literature granting insight into how travel authors, such as Bill Bryson and Paul Theroux, convince readers to “buy into” their worlds and refl ect the readers’ positions in society, to contemplating the meanings of the words “traveller” and “tourist”. Other chapters examine how actual travelling can shape students’ writing and vice versa, whereas still others address how the study of the genre and actually writing it promotes interdisciplinarity.’ Groom cited in Siegel. For further details see Groom (2004).

Also see Srivastava who scripts Sankrityayan’s writings in exploring complex ideas of home and belong-ing: ‘This article seeks to re-think the perspective within South Asian studies that speaks of the fi xity of home and belonging in the Indian context through a consideration of a range of material…explores how specifi c but far more complex ideas of home and belonging circulate in Indian society. The material analyzed includes Hindi travel literature and fi ctional material, offi cial developmental discourse, PWD reports, scholarly writing, Bollywood cinema, and the rules regarding travel perks for government service’ Srivastava (2005: 375).



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a testimony to the signifi cance of locality and of the many unheard voices that could have been lost, and his GS a complete theorization of travel/wandering/nomadism.

In his words: “It may have been a cherished belief that wandering is a means and not an end. This was because they [people] were bereft of the science of wandering. How would they know what the purpose of wandering is, without having an established theory. Until now, people believed that wandering is a means and the end is liberation. However, I would like to think, roaming/wandering is both a means and an end in itself ” (GS: 88). Sankrityayan travelled wide- into the far reaches of Central Asia and into vast China. He kept extensive notes of his various arduous journeys to document and describe in graphic detail the regions he visited as also to document experiences of hardships and joys that punctuated his writing.

Sankrityayan’s writing shows historical glitches (Bajpai 1981: 137); but were these deliberate? Sankrityayan would have perhaps suggested that if history had to develop another eye and that eye was infl uenced by Buddhism, Buddha’s words Sabbam Khanikam would show that in the search for meaning even if it is from/of history “nothing is stationary; everything is transient.” Sankrityayan picked out from the transience of time, the meaning and method of history by asserting “I do not have monopoly of truth. I do my bit. Let the future generations improve upon me” (Machwe 1998: 11). Sankrityayan’s narrative on Kinnaur is distinct from those written by a range of European travellers and British offi cers whose accounts though precious for many other good reasons, barely conceal shock and disenchantment.

His texts were neither deifi ed nor proclaimed, but fortunately, have not been forgotten. Available largely in Hindi, these writings confer on this unusual scholar, ethnologist, polyglot and fi rst and foremost, unbound traveller, the unique position of having instituted the genre of travel writing in Hindi. As the pioneer of travel writing in the 20th century Hindi world, Rahul Sankrityayan’s writing on Kinnaur, post-independence, provides a new trope to discourses on movement and belonging, uniqueness and shared-ness, by fashioning a novel way of describing margins—sacred and the secular, imagined and real. If travel, text and empire decided to hold hands as ‘embodied knowledge’ the writings of Sankrityayan bring forth, frank, perceptive and absorbing accounts in Hindi, of landscapes he discerned through the many languages and metaphors peculiar to regions on the porous borders of the Himalayas criss-crossed by silk routes, bringing out through rich variegated accounts, the absurdity of those texts that had manufactured a set of clichés about ‘locals’ in alien languages, they could never respond to.

In Kinnaur Desh Mein, the gaze of Nomad- Supremo Sankrityayan, the fi rst Indian travel writer, moves over midnight’s children in far fl ung lands, where he crafted persuasive testimonies through the many voices in history, of a land called Kinnaur, executing thus, the essence of ghumakkdi (wanderlust) or any prolegomena to any future treatises on traveling/wandering/nomadism.




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REFERENCES

Bajpai, Shiva Chandra, Kinnaur in the Himalayas: Mythology to Modernity (New Delhi: Naurang Publishing House, 1981).

———, Kinnaur: A Restricted Land in the Himalayas (New Delhi: Indus Publishing Co., 1991).Beszterda, Rafal, ‘Traditional Beekeeping in Kinnaur District, Himachal Pradesh’, Ethnology Laboratory,

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland, 2000, https://www.mtnforum.org/rs/ol/counter_docdown.cfm?fID=435.pdf (accessed on 15 October 2009).

Bray, John, ‘A History of the Moravian Church in India’, in Julie G. Marshall (Ed.), In the Himalayan Mission: Moravian Church Centenary, Leh, Ladakh, India 1885–1985 (Leh: Moravian Church, 1985), pp. 27–75.

———, ‘Christian Missionaries on the Tibetan Border: The Moravian Church in Poo (Kinnaur), 1865–1924’, in Ihara Shoren and Yamaguchi Zuiho (eds), Tibetan Studies, Narita 1989 (Narita-Shi, Chiba-Ken, Japan: Naritasan Shinshoji, 1992), pp. 369–75.

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Author’s Address: Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi 110 016, India. E-mail: [email protected]



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