<b>Hauma Hamiddha Ji, (and Ashok Kumar Ji if he reads it,)</b>
While the leanings and views of Rahul Sankrityayan are nothing secret, what is your opinion on his quality of scholarship?
More I read him, the more clear it becomes that he does not hesitate to compromise with truth (as he knows) for the 'cause'. Also, it becomes painfully clear, how, just like modern left scholars like DN Jha, Srimali or RS Sharma, he had no problems using history-writing for pushing the ideology forward? Please tell me I went somewhere terribly wrong.
I referred to Jaya Yaudheya. His objective seems, not the lofty aim of unearthing the lost tradition of Yaudheya-s, but even more to show the Gupta-era as suppressive and tyrannic. Gupta era about which even hostile european authers have to admit about, being the 'happiest period anywhere in the world'. But, well, Sankrityayan has to prove with history, that "suppression has been the foundation of economic progress in history". How could the peoples of that era have been happy if the "kingdom" was prosperous! How could a kingdom tolerate a people's republic that were Yaudheya-s! So Yaudheya-s become his laboratory. For RS, less mantrashalinah, and more jana-gana. Characters even blame Kalidasa to have ignored them thereby helping suppress their narrative! It does not cross him, or he choses to ignore, that Kavikulguru may have pre-dated the events he is mentioning in his novel? Same zeal on display which can be seen in the writers of "People's History" elsewhere.
I then referred to, let me confess - with some particular expectations from a scholar like him - to his another and less known work - 'Islam Dharma Ki Rooparekha'. It took the librarian a couple of hours to look for it. And finally, the book was found in a pitiable condition - literally tied with roaps to hold that only copy together. And well, the book is probably the most sympathetic account of Islam, a "Buddhist" scholar can ever come up with. As per this book Islam is a wonderful religion of peace, and mahatma muhammad is a peace-messanger. Almost everything that will make islami-s having hard time to explain, are easily and very schoilarly explained away - including Kafir, Jihad, Muhammad marrying wife of his adopted son ... Same auther who has hard time living with the fact that a certain bhakt-acharya in ayodhya "behaves like a woman, and considers rama 'her' husband" (in another work - 'Dimagi Gulami')!! I looked to confirm that the book's author is indeed our Sankrityayan - who is known for seeing things which other can not see - particularly in the suppressed narratives and comparative religion, that too someone who was formally trained in the pathashala-s of Arya Samaj on the folly that is Islam. And he also wrote this particular one in Sanskrit!! In sanskrit first then in Hindi. Allah-upanishadam type!
In 'Manav-Samaj', some chapters seem like a DN Jha writing in Hindi, with 50 year old facts and style of course. The same obsession with Aryans, and same obsession with Beef-Eating.
So I still wonder. I can not beleive a 'scholar' like him - could he have genuinely beleived in what he wrote - or was it only his political-ideological compulsion?
While the leanings and views of Rahul Sankrityayan are nothing secret, what is your opinion on his quality of scholarship?
More I read him, the more clear it becomes that he does not hesitate to compromise with truth (as he knows) for the 'cause'. Also, it becomes painfully clear, how, just like modern left scholars like DN Jha, Srimali or RS Sharma, he had no problems using history-writing for pushing the ideology forward? Please tell me I went somewhere terribly wrong.
I referred to Jaya Yaudheya. His objective seems, not the lofty aim of unearthing the lost tradition of Yaudheya-s, but even more to show the Gupta-era as suppressive and tyrannic. Gupta era about which even hostile european authers have to admit about, being the 'happiest period anywhere in the world'. But, well, Sankrityayan has to prove with history, that "suppression has been the foundation of economic progress in history". How could the peoples of that era have been happy if the "kingdom" was prosperous! How could a kingdom tolerate a people's republic that were Yaudheya-s! So Yaudheya-s become his laboratory. For RS, less mantrashalinah, and more jana-gana. Characters even blame Kalidasa to have ignored them thereby helping suppress their narrative! It does not cross him, or he choses to ignore, that Kavikulguru may have pre-dated the events he is mentioning in his novel? Same zeal on display which can be seen in the writers of "People's History" elsewhere.
I then referred to, let me confess - with some particular expectations from a scholar like him - to his another and less known work - 'Islam Dharma Ki Rooparekha'. It took the librarian a couple of hours to look for it. And finally, the book was found in a pitiable condition - literally tied with roaps to hold that only copy together. And well, the book is probably the most sympathetic account of Islam, a "Buddhist" scholar can ever come up with. As per this book Islam is a wonderful religion of peace, and mahatma muhammad is a peace-messanger. Almost everything that will make islami-s having hard time to explain, are easily and very schoilarly explained away - including Kafir, Jihad, Muhammad marrying wife of his adopted son ... Same auther who has hard time living with the fact that a certain bhakt-acharya in ayodhya "behaves like a woman, and considers rama 'her' husband" (in another work - 'Dimagi Gulami')!! I looked to confirm that the book's author is indeed our Sankrityayan - who is known for seeing things which other can not see - particularly in the suppressed narratives and comparative religion, that too someone who was formally trained in the pathashala-s of Arya Samaj on the folly that is Islam. And he also wrote this particular one in Sanskrit!! In sanskrit first then in Hindi. Allah-upanishadam type!
In 'Manav-Samaj', some chapters seem like a DN Jha writing in Hindi, with 50 year old facts and style of course. The same obsession with Aryans, and same obsession with Beef-Eating.
So I still wonder. I can not beleive a 'scholar' like him - could he have genuinely beleived in what he wrote - or was it only his political-ideological compulsion?