MAN is a history - making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind—W. H. Auden."

AND this saying goes well for Sir Aurel Stein. Forgotten historian and linguist Sir Aurel Stein who recognised the importance of Kashmiri culture as a part of the world culture and introduced Kashmir at global status for which the people of Kashmir should remain grateful to him. Kashmir has always been on the world map with optimistic approach.

History has opened a new chapter on the life and work of Stein that he had rendered to Kashmiri society. A joint Indo-British heritage project, under the title Study of Sir Aurel Stein’s Kashmiri Manuscripts Heritage in UK, is being taken for the first time by the Kashmiri Bhawan Centre (KBC), in London with the support granted by Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), Cambridge, and Indian Institute Bodleian Library Oxford (IIBLO). This project will reaffirm Stein’s contact and links with international scholars, particularly with Kashmir scholars on the studies of Kashmiri literature, history and language besides Sanskrit work he had done with George Grierson, Maurice Winternitz and Franklin Edgerton.

Sir Aurel Stein in 12 years (1888-1900) studied Kashmiri and during this time he edited, translated and commented on Kalhan’s Rajtarangani. First he did Sanskrit edition, followed by English translation with appendices. He worked on Rajtarangani with authenticity and determination, verifying Kalhan’s historical record of Kashmir. He also authenticated Kalhan’s history with topographical studies of ancient geography of Kashmir. Credit goes to German scholar George Buhler too who collected 300 Sanskrit manuscripts from Kashmir itself in 1875, known as the records of ancient history of Kashmir

Between 1888 to 1905 Stein also collected 367 manuscripts in Kashmir along with many collections of other antiquities and deposited these to IIBLO in 1911. And since then, these manuscripts have remained away from public eye.

Stein was a Hungarian, but nationalised himself as British citizen in 1904. He chose India and that too Kashmir as his adopted home. He worked and stayed in Kashmir almost 55 years of his life. He left Kashmir two weeks before his death in October 1943. He died as a bachelor. And in Kashmir, he stayed at many places but the place that captivated him was Kangan valley’s plateau of Mohand Marg at the foothills of Harmukh peaks. He would call it as his spiritual home.

For him knowledge and the spirit of human learning was the essential core of his outlook to human civilisation. In 1912, on his confabulation with the then Education Minister A Mitra in Maharaja’s regime, the technical institute building in the name of Amar Singh Technical School was erected. A college for technical and vocational courses was also established in Kashmir in 1917. On Stein’s suggestion, Fred Andrew took the assignment of Amar Singh Technical School as founder, director and principal. The very important aspects of Stein’s Kashmir life was that he entirely devoted his life to study the history of Sanskrit literature. That study enabled him to dig out the history of Central Asia as well. Stein’s authority on Sanskrit was acknowledged when he edited Kalhan’s Rajtarangani. Stein was always attracted to past .He went as back to Hsuan-Tsang, Alexander and Kalhan’s time, tried to build a continuous head with which he identified Kashmiri society down the course of history. Had it not been Aurel Stein’s vision, perhaps the great treasures of Kashmir literature would have been lost.

In all his endeavours, Stein was assisted by eminent Kashmiri scholars, including Mukand Ram Shastri, Sahaz Bhat and Nityanand Shastri.

Not alone in Kashmir context but in Indian context also, Stein’s contribution is hardly known. The task of making New Delhi as modern capital of India was entrusted by Viceroy Lord Harding to the eminent British architect Lutyens. Before the new capital came up it was Aurel Stein, Harved Baker and Lutyens who surveyed New Delhi. Another interesting feature of Stein’s India life was the introduction of Indian Civil Services, the important contributions of developing modern education and administration in India which was planned by Sir Spenser Harcourt Butler.