Special guests:

• Kamala Sankrityayan, widow of Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana, editor of his writings, educator and literary writer
• Jaya Parhawk, daughter of Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana and Kamala Sankrityayan
• Jürgen Lütt, Professor Emeritus at the Department of South Asian History of Humboldt University, Berlin.

Lectures are scheduled for 40-45 minutes, followed by 15-20 minutes of discussion.

FRIDAY, 14 December

15:00 | Karin Preisendanz, Head of the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies of the University of Vienna: Welcome

Birgit Kellner, Symposium Convener: Introduction

15:30 | Jaya Parhawk: Rahul Sankrityayan: searching for the man behind the legend

16:30 | Kamala Sankrityayan: (title to be announced)

17:30 | Ernst Steinkellner, Professor Emeritus for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna: Concluding Words for the Afternoon

18:00 | Opening of an exhibition of photographs from Tibet, taken in 2007 by Kazuo Kano, who traveled in the footsteps of Sāṅkṛtyāyana, and of reproductions of watercolour portraits painted by Kanwal Krishna in Tibet in 1938 and in the 1940s.

SATURDAY, 15 December

Morning session (moderation: Birgit Kellner)

10:00 | Kazuo Kano (Hamburg/Kyoto): Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana’s visits to Tibetan monasteries in the 1930s - tracing his footsteps with the help of his autobiography

11:00 | Birgit Kellner (Vienna): Of mules, Marx and manuscripts – social, political and practical dimensions of Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana’s trips to Tibet 1934, 1936 and 1938

Afternoon session (moderation: Martin Gaenszle)

14:00 | Ines Fornell (Göttingen): From Volga to Ganga: the reconstruction of the past in Sankrityayan’s fiction

15:00 | Alaka Atreya Chudal (Vienna): Rahul Sankrityayan’s novel Bāisviṃ Sadī and beyond

16:00 | Johanna Buß: Summary and appreciation, followed by general discussion