About the Institute

Sahitya Sansthan (Institute of Rajasthan Studies), established way back in 1941, is a constituent unit of Janardan Rai Nagar Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Deemed University, Udaipur. It was raised to work on ancient literature (both desi and margi) of Rajasthan besides Sanskrit, Hindi and folk culture(s). Jannu Bhai (Janardan Rai Nagar), founder of the institute as well university, was a visionary who encouraged popularizing Hindi as a national language right from the beginning. He was a freedom fighter, poet, writer, social worker and had deep understanding of philosophy of democracy, which reflected in the administrative set up of this university. The creation of a research institute was/ is an innovative idea in the university. It was initially known as Prachin Sodh Vibhag and subsequently renamed as Sahitya Sansthan in the fifties of the last century. In the year 1986 a UGC inspection team suggested to rename the institute as Institute of Rajasthan Studies since the faculty was mostly focused on the academia in Rajasthan. It is therefore this new name was also added to the old one.  

Several luminaries e.g., Purshottam Lal Menaria, Bhagwati Lalji Bhatt, Girdhari Lal Sharma, Prithvi Singh Mehta,  Bhagwat Sharan Upadhyay, Dr. Gouri Shankar Hira Chand Ojha, Raghuveer Singh, Laxmi Lal Joshi,  Moti Lalji Menaria, Kanhaiya Lal Sahal, Sri Narottam Das Swami, Nathu Lal Bhagirath Vyas, Bhola Shanker Vyas, Sri Vipin Bihari Bajpai, Udai Singh Bhatnagar, Kavirao Mohan Singh, Dashrath Sharma, Sri Jhabbarmalla Sharma, Sri Agar Chand Nahata, Sri Saval Dan Asia, Ratanala Jain, Roopsingh, Yogeshchandra Sharma and so on had direct or indirect association with the institute.  

In the early years, the institute organized 33rd all India conference of Hindi (Akhil Bhartiya Hindi Sahitya Sammelan) in the month of October 1945. It was a historic event in the journey of our university as it was known as Hindi Vidyapeeth and the freedom struggle was on the high heels. Obviously the language was also a question of our identity. Several stalwarts of the discipline like Sri Kanhaiyalal Manikyalal Munshi, Purshottam Das Tandon, Moulichandra Sharma and others participated this conference. 

Soon after the establishment of the institute, the then faculty published a few books on folk literature apart from initiating publication of a research journal called Sodh Patrika in the year 1948.

These activities were carried out at a time when the country was fighting for independence and atmosphere for promotion of any Indian language was not conducive. This journal is being published for last 70 years regularly which is surely an achievement for any institution.