Introduction
Henry David Thoreau came in contact with India through Emerson’s library of erudite books. He influenced Thoreau with a certain enthusiasm for the Wisdom of India. During his stay in 1838 with Emerson’s brother, Thoreau had unrestricted access to Emerson’s library which contained the great works of India such as The Vedas, The Laws of Manu, the Hitopadesha of Vishnu Sharma, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads. Thoreau read the Hindu scriptures with delight and each reading, he was raised into a rare region of thought.
Thoreau not only read books on Indian Philosophy from Emerson’s library but also from his borrowings from the Harvard College Library during 1849-1854. His steadily growing interest in Indian philosophy led him to study Colebrooke’s ‘Essays’, and Burnouf’s ‘Introduction a “histoire du Buddhisme Indien’. An article, ‘The Preaching of Buddha’, based on his study of Burnouf’s book, selections from ‘The Laws of Manu’, and selections from the Oriental scriptures, were also contributed by Thoreau to the ‘Dial’. In the Prefaces to the selections, Orientalists like Colebrooke, Hodgson and Wilkins are frequently cited by Thoreau. All this shows his interest in India.
In January 1843, Thoreau published selected passages from Laws of Manu from a French version of the Sanskrit Harivansa in the Dial. Thoreau also translated a story, “The Transmigration of seven Brahmans”, and in The Dial of January 1844, he published excerpts from Buddhist Scriptures under the title “The preaching of Buddha”. Hindu scripture tells us that the central core of one’s self (antaratman) is identifiable with the cosmic whole (Brahman). The Upanishads state: “The self within you, the respondent, immortal person is the internal self of all things and is the universal Brahman”. Concepts similar to this cardinal doctrine of vedanta appear in the writings of the Transcendentalists.
In 1855, Thoreau’s friend Thomas Cholmondeley sent him “a handsome library of Oriental literature” which included the First and Second Ashtaka of Rigveda Samhita, Gaurapada’s commentary on the Sankhya Karika, select specimen of the Theatre of the Hindus, Vishnu Purana translated by H.H. Wilson, Colebrooke’s translation of the Sankhya Karika, and Treatise on the Hindu Law of Inheritance and Miscellaneous Essays, Sri William Jones translation of the Institutes of Menu, Roer’s translation of the Upanishads in Vol.XV of the Bibliothria Indica, Milman’s Nala and Damayanti and M.E. Burnoff’s Lotus de la Bonne Thoreau received his gift with great enthusiasm. In a letter to his friend Blatu, Thoreau says, “They are in English, French, Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. One is splendidly bound and illustrated … I am familiar with many of them and know how to prize them.”
Thoreau’s reflections, on his reading of Indian philosophy find expression in all his works; and the influences of Indian philosophy can be seen from references he makes in his writings.
Thoreau and the Laws of Manu
After he read the “Laws of Manu” he confided in his Journal: “I cannot read a sentence in the book of the Hindoos without being elevated as upon the table land of the ghauts. It has such a rhythm as the winds of desert, such a tide as the Ganges and seems as superior to criticism as the Himmaleh mounts. Even at this later hour unworn by time, with a native and inherent dignity it wears the English dress as indifferently as the Sanskrit. The great tone is of such fibre and such severe tension that no time nor accident can relax it” (Journal 1-P.266).
“A week on the Merrimack River’s” contains echoes of The Laws of Manu. Thoreau says in A Week: “One of the most attractive of those ancient books that I have met with, is The Laws of Manu.” The book acquires a divine character and invokes nothing but unquestioning admiration. The ‘Laws’ appear to Thoreau as intensely private and yet public and universal. They are beyond refutation. They are above criticism. The only reason, why the book should have so profoundly impressed Thoreau seems to be, its absolute impersonality. The stability of society, like the stability of the earth itself, is of supreme importance and individual sufferings sink into insignificance. There is an element of inescapability from the Law of being and every individual must accept his station in life with an uncomplaining obedience and strive for excellence for the social good.
Thoreau was influenced by the reading of Laws of Manu and it is clear from his statement “I love my fate to the very core and vind”. Thoreau surrendered to nature and established a complete union with nature. He discovered harmony in nature. Thoreau says “The birds with their plumage and their notes are in harmony with the flowers.” This is a feeling similar to the one which the vedic Rishi expressed in the beautiful Rig Vedic hymn to Ushas or the Dawn. Thoreau discovered this at-one-ment with nature in Kalidasa, when he said: ‘Even in Kalidasa’s Drama of Sacontala, we read of ‘rills dyed yellow with the golden dust of the Lotus’. ‘Let us first be simple and well as nature ourselves, dispel clouds that hangover our brows and take up a little more life into our pores’.
Thoreau and the Bhagavad Gita
Thoreau was also influenced by the Bhagavad Gita. He was introduced to Gita in Emerson’s library. He looked upon the Gita as the greatest discovery of the age. Thoreau says “In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial”.
Comparing the Gita with the Holy Bible, “Thoreau finds the New Testament remarkable for its pure morality, the best of the Hindu scripture, for its pure intellectuality. The reader is now here raised into and sustained in a higher, purer or rarer region of thought than in the Bhagavad Gita. “Thoreau calls it one of the noblest and most sacred scriptures which have come down to us.” For Thoreau, the Gita is more colossal than any other masterpiece of the East. Thoreau speaks of “the sanity and sublimity” of the Gita and tells American contemporaries to study it with reverence: ‘I would say to the readers of scriptures, if they wish for a good book to read the Bhagavad Gita … known to have been written … more than four thousand years ago … it matters not whether three or four or when … it deserves to be on read with reverence even by Yankees, as a part of the sacred writings of a devout people.’
Biographers say that Thoreau went to the Walden Pond to write his first book “A week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” but at the same time his journey to the woods is that of a Hindu Yogi to practice some sort of penance. Thoreau says “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to face only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived and Thoreau confesses to Harrison Blake in 1849 that “to some extent and at rare intervals even I am a Yogi” (Writings VI-P.175).
Yoga, Simplicity, and Indian Philosophy
We know too that Thoreau’s reading led him to an interest in yoga. He wrote in a letter to a friend: “Free in this world as the buds in the air, disengaged from every kind of chains, those who have practiced the yoga gather in Brahma the certain fruit of their works … The yogi, absorbed in contemplation, contributes in his degree to creation … Divine forms traverse him … and united to the nature which is proper to him, he goes, he acts as animating original matter…”
Yoga is the effort of a man to unites himself with the deeper element. The word ‘yoga’ bears philogical relations to the English word ‘yoke’, the Latin jungo’, and the German (joch). The underlying idea of all these terms is ‘linking’. Yoga is getting to the Supreme, touching the Absolute. It is ‘yoking’ all the forces of heart, mind and will to the Supreme or God. Renunciation of worldly activities is a prerequisite to self-discipline. Self discipline is essential to all activities of a yogi, if complete identity is to be sought with the object contemplated.
Thoreau advocates the life of simplicity, a lesson which he had taught himself at Walden Pond. He says in Walden “Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five and reduce other things in proportion” (Walden, 173) and he also says: “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind” (Walden, P.115).
According to the Indian scripture, the body is the temple of God and should be looked upon as such: “Deho devalayah Proktah”. Thoreau too speaks of the body in a similar thought. Thoreau says “Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the God he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones.”
Thoreau also reads Oriental Poems, Preaching of Buddha, and selections from The Laws of Manu. Thoreau says “From exertion come wisdom and purity: from sloth ignorance and sexuality.” The Upanishads says that liberation is not the result of the knowledge of Atman, but that man becomes imbued with knowledge since he lives in such a way that “ordinary minds cannot understand his actions, life or movements, any more than a dreaming man can see the world of those who are awake” and Thoreau believed that living is far more important than itself.
Vedanta, Maya, and Self-Realization
Vedanta Philosophy of India emphasizes the distinction between appearance and reality, man as he appears and man as he is. He feels the lack of a clear distinction between the two is responsible for the mean life. To quote Thoreau, he says “I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things. We think that is which appears to be.”
It is the lack of self-realization that is responsible for the manners and petitions of life. Self-realization is the realization of the true self in man. Thoreau was fascinated by the self discovery parable of a young prince who loses his way in the woods, is brought up by a forester, grows up without knowing that he is prince and later made aware of this fact and Thoreau says: “I have read in a Hindoo book, that there was a king’s son who, being expelled in infancy from his native city, was brought up by a forester, and growing up to maturity in that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with which he lived. One of his father’s ministers having discovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince. So the soul, continues the Hindoo philosopher, mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some holy teacher and thence it knows itself to be Brahma.”
Thoreau discovered harmony in nature and established a complete union with nature. “The whole course of Nature its beauty evoked his worship and admiration of the creator. In his theology of nature God was always present and this is apt for Thoreau who tried to reach the goal of spiritual reality.” Thoreau like the Indian philosophers attaches importance to the role of Brahmacharya. He says “If you would be chaste, you must be temperate.” The Dharma-Sastras as a class of literature represent the efforts of successive generations to adjust human behaviour to a just and valid norm.
Thoreau believed in the Indian theory of rebirth. According to this Indian theory, life does not begin at birth and ends at death but the soul is born hundreds and thousands of times. One’s birth depends on ones action in the previous existences. And if one wants a complete release from this cycle of births and rebirths, it can be attained only by a life of duty, devotion and knowledge. Thoreau was totally impressed by this idea and it is evident from his choice of the episode of the “transmigration of seven Brahmins” which is narrated in the Harrivansa purana, an appendage of the Mahabharata, which he translated from the French of Langlois.
Thoreau was conversant with the Indian idea of Maya, and this is evident from the passage in The Dial: “Whatever is on earth is the resemblance and shadow of something that is in the sphere. While the resplendent thing remaineth in good condition, it is well also with its shadow. When that resplendent thing removeth far from its shadow, life removth to a distance. The perfect seeth unity in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity.”
Thoreau’s Mystical Affinity with India
Thoreau had a spiritual awareness of Nature. In his theology of nature, God was always present. Thoreau has expressed his reverence for ancient Hindu Philosophers in his book Walden. He says “The ancient philosopher, Hindu, Persian and Greek were a class than which non has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward.” (Walden 115).
Thoreau identified himself with nature in his cabin at Walden Pond and thus linked himself into the Hindu. He was thinking of living a life of character in which man and god are close to each other. In such a life, man embraces the association of natural forms of life. He found nature serene and satisfied, without any question on her lips. Quoting Harivansa, Thoreau writes: “Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask.” In Hindu thought, the mystic ideal is stated to be the realization of the Divine in its immanence and transcendence, the Divine in man and Nature, and the Divine beyond and above them.
There are many references to Hindu thought and literature in Walden. Thoreau says in the chapter entitled “Where I lived, and what I lived for” “The Vedas say, ‘All Intelligences awake with the morning’” (Walden Page 172). Thoreau says in his concluding chapter of Walden “They pretend, as I hear, that the verses of Kabir have four different senses, illusion, spirit, intellect and the exoteric doctrine of the Vedas.”
The ecstasies of Sri Aurobindo, the Indian mystic are similar to those of Thoreau’s experiences. Sri Aurobindo is a seer poet and Indian nationalist who originated the philosophy of cosmic salvation through spiritual evolution. According to Aurobindo’s theory of cosmic salvation, the paths to union with Brahman are two way streets or channels: Enlightenment comes from above (thesis) while the spiritual mind (supermind) strives through yogic illumination to reach upward from below (antithesis). When these two forces blend, a gnostic individual is created (synthesis).
Thoreau appreciates the philosophy of action without attachment in the Bhagavat Geeta. Thoreau says in “the week” “But they, who are unconcerned about the consequences of their actions, are not therefore, unconcerned about their actions.” Geeta preaches action or Karma, it preaches renunciation or Sanyasa and it also preaches wisdom or jnana and since all there are too lofty to be attained by ordinary mortals, in addition, preaches the path of devotion or Bhakti which means complete and unquestioning surrender to the Supreme Being.
Conclusion
Thoreau “gave a lucid view of the oneness he experienced when he wrote ‘In some fortunate moment, the voice of eternal wisdom reaches me, in the strain of the sparrow, and liberates me, whets and classifies my senses, makes me a competent witness’.” From this it is clear that Thoreau experienced an expansion of being, an ecstasy which led to a vision of “eternal wisdom”, all from classified senses. Thoreau’s understanding of the creativity of man and the world, was his interest in the spiritual and the wild. “I love my fate to the very core and rind” says Henry David Thoreau. And this attitude towards creations reflects the Indian principle of Anand (Bliss) ie the delight in existence. His writings show his wide acquaintance of the Indian scripture particularly the Bhagavad Gita.
Works Cited
Edited with an Introduction by Joseph Wood Krutch, Walden and Other Writing by Henry David Thoreau. New York: Bantam Books inc, 1962.
Krishna Nand Joshi. The West looks at India — Studies in the impact of Indian thought on Shelly, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Ruskin, Tennyson, D.H. Lawrence & James Joyce. Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1969.
A.N. Divivedi. Studies in American Literature — Thoreau (A study). Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1974.
D.G. Deshmukh. Thoreau and Indian Thought — A study of the Impact of Indian Thought on the life and writings of Henry David Thoreau. Nagpur University, 1974.
Arthur Christy. The Orient in American Transcendentalism. New York: 1932.
R.K. Dhawan. Henry David Thoreau A study in Indian Influence. New Delhi: Classical Publishing, 1985.
Edited by Walter Harding, George Brenner & Paul & Doyle. Henry David Thoreau Studies and Commentaries. Fairleigh Dickension University Press, 1972.