Prafulla Kumar Sen (died 24 March 1942), also known as

Swami Swami ( ; sometimes abbreviated sw.) in Hinduism is an honorific title given to a male or female ascetic who has chosen the path of renunciation (''sanyāsa''), or has been initiated into a religious monastic order of Vaishnavas. It is used eit ...

Satyananda Puri, was an Indian

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...

and philosopher. Puri, had in his youth taught

Oriental philosophy Eastern philosophy or Asian philosophy includes the various philosophies that originated in East and South Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Korean philosophy, and Vietnamese philosophy; which are dominant in East Asia, ...

at the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a public collegiate state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every yea ...

and later at

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

Visva-Bharati University Visva-Bharati () is a public central university and an Institution of National Importance located in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it ''Visva-Bharati'', which means the communion of the ...

Santiniketan Santiniketan is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in the Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and later expanded by hi ...

. Encouraged by Tagore, he arrived in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

in 1932, and in 1939, he founded the Thai-Bharat Lodge, a cultural forum. Arriving in Thailand, Puri was appointed a professor at the

Chulalongkorn University Chulalongkorn University (CU, th, จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย, ), nicknamed Chula ( th, จุฬาฯ), is a public and autonomous research university in Bangkok, Thailand. The university was originally fo ...

, lecturing in ancient Indian and Thai languages, and is said to have mastered the Thai Language in six months and went on to translate a number of Indian philosophical works and biographies, including the

Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th to 4th centuries BCE, and later stages ...

and biographies of

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

to Thai. His literary work eventually was more than twenty volumes. At the onset of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

in 1939, Puri also came to form the

Indian National Council The Indian National Council was an organisation founded in December 1941 in Bangkok by Indian Nationalists residing in Thailand. The organisation was founded from the Thai-Bharat Cultural Lodge on 22 December 1941. The founding president of the C ...

that, along with

Giani Pritam Singh Giani Pritam Singh Dhillon was an Indian freedom fighter and Sikh missionary who, as a member of the Ghadar Party, was instrumental in the planning of the failed 1915 Ghadar conspiracy in the British Indian Army. Giani Pritam Singh Dhillon was a ...

's Indian Independence League, was instrumental in stimulating the evolving Japanese interest in supporting armed Indian resistance for the

Indian freedom movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged from Bengal. ...

. Singh and Puri were amongst the first people to negotiate with

Fujiwara Iwaichi was an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II, and later a lieutenant general in the post-war Japan Ground Self Defense Force. Biography A native of Hyōgo prefecture, Fujiwara graduated from the 43rd class of the Imperial Jap ...

and the

F Kikan was a military intelligence operation established by the IGHQ in September 1941. The Unit was transferred to Bangkok at the end of that month and headed by Major Fujiwara Iwaichi, chief of intelligence of the 15th army. Its task was to contact ...

regarding Japanese policies in an effort to obtain a commitment about the support of the movement that ultimately saw the foundation of the Indian Independence League and the

Indian National Army The Indian National Army (INA; ''Azad Hind Fauj'' ; 'Free Indian Army') was a collaborationist armed force formed by Indian collaborators and Imperial Japan on 1 September 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II. Its aim was to secure In ...

.Indian National Army in East Asia. Hindustan Times
Both Puri and Pritam Singh were among the Indian delegates killed in a plane crash en route to the Tokyo conference in March 1942. The Swami Satyananda Puri foundation was established by the Thai-Bharat Cultural Lodge in 1942 in his honour. The SSPF library today is a reference library that houses many old and rare Indian texts. The foundation is also involved in promoting work on Indian culture, especially on the

References

Indian National Army in East Asia. Hindustan Times
* Indian independence movement Indian revolutionaries Azad Hind Indian Independence League Rabindranath Tagore University of Calcutta alumni University of Calcutta faculty Prafulla Kumar Sen Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in medicine 1942 deaths Year of birth missing {{India-philosopher-stub