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The French author of this book has chosen an ashram of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry to understand Indian ethos and cultural phenomenon. It is not a new thing for us Indians. The Europeans inhale the fragrance of their native cultures and make attempts to interpret Indian culture. Because of Indians’ search for the infinite spiritual truth they have been bred on mythology, tradition, religious beliefs, and so on. They transcended rationality and lived in the realm of the beyond where reason commits happy suicide and one enjoys eternal bliss (mukuti).
It may be pertinent to craft alien culture when one inherits native culture since conception in the womb becomes difficult to project objective picture of others’ culture. The author has made an abortive attempt. He sees Indian culture through the grooves of French culture. He concentrates only on the Vedantic thought of Sri Aurobindo, Vivekananda, Tagore at.al. He thinks as if the Vedanata is the sole Indian culture. It is a lopsided presentation of Indian culture which is beyond these thinkers. It has other dimensions as well. It is a complex phenomenon. It has multi-dimensional facets which are split up into variant traditions. These traditions are mixed with alien and native traditions that have been flowering since time immemorial. All traditions have their independent statuses and have Indian impact as well. Culture is concerned with inward states of consciousness in its blossomed forms. It may diminish or shine with historical epochs but the essence of culture continues for ever. Culture is a lived experience and traditions are likened to dry leafs which shed them with the changing conditions. Outmoded traditions are dropped which are cut off from the societal realities and new traditions come up. Thus, this dynamic cultural process ceaselessly cycles and recycles for times to come. The author opines that Indian culture declines in the medieval period. It resumed its full swing during the British colonial rule. Sanskrit literature of India was patronized by the Western intellectual circles (p.69). Your reviewer is of the view that their contributions were limited to philological analysis. Hence, their researches escaped objective insightful conceptual grasp of the Sanskrit texts. They interpreted Indian culture couched in Western thought and, thus, presented caricatured picture of Indian culture. While perusing contents of the book it has been noted that the author has not shown insightful peep into Indian culture. He quotes authors who do not have in-depth understanding of Indian culture. The book often digresses from the central theme of culture (see, Introduction). Next pages, up to seventy-six, present popular view of Indian culture. He quotes the Gita and the Mahabharata which reveal his popular viewpoint of the common masses. He limits his discussion to political scenario of colonised India and post-Independence period. He takes up Indian mathematics, astronomy, four yugas (eons) of Indian mythology. The yugas are the Puranic concept of progressive decrease of truth from the satyayuga to kaliyuga (p.33). This concept is knitted with mythical cyclic view of time. He discusses microcosm and macrocosm (36) and rightly points out that human body (pind) reflects the cosmic Being. He tries to emphasise Indians’ search for mystery of Infinity. "The quest for the infinite was by no means exclusive to ancient India, rooted deep down in the human being; it surfaced in every civilization" (p. 40). He wants to show supremacy of India’s contribution to the world. The author claims that Greek mathematical thinker visited India and "certain learned Indians actually visited Athens and conversed with Socrates. (pp. 50-1). What a phantastic view! It is claimed that Buddhism spread out of India partly through earlier channels of communication (p.52). Further the author is trying to find out parallels of Indian civilization with other global civilizations (e. g., Afghanistan, Mongolia, Lanka, China, and so on) without analysis. It is asserted that "Hinduism and Buddhism were not compartmentalized as they were often made to be ...."(p. 53). It is difficult to agree with the author. Both were at daggers drawn. The Vedantins drove out Buddhism from its native soil. The latter flourished in other countries where dynamic view of life was in practice. In support of this argument the Tibetan manuscripts can be quoted. These are pure and real treasures of Buddhism’s philosophy and teachings. The book arouses reader’s critical sense who has sound background of Indian culture and philosophical streams of thought. The book is meant for common readers who are concerned with popular type of information about India’s heritage and style of living (p.53). The book has a nice getup and has been flawlessly produced.
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On the other hand, the
Westerns built their philosophical and religious beliefs on rational
sound grounds and could not bridge the chasm between this world and the
‘Other’. The Indian spiritual celebrities stretched the finite into
infinity. Hence "... Indic thought and spirituality have travelled
far and wide and left deeper footprints that Eurocentric perspectives
have so far acknowledged (p. 56). It is unfortunate the Europeans
over-shadowed Indian thought with power and better, rational
methodology. Indians largely live on traditions and religious faith.
Truth being in flux they could not pace with the changing historicity of
the dynamic time (waqat/kala). The Westerns are ahead of us in this
respect.