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 and the Upanishads. Thoreau read the Hindu scriptures with delight and with 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.
Thoreau, Emerson and few others were the men who believed in high thinking and simple living and they were called the Transcendentalist and this group of thinkers and writers came to be called the “Concord Brahmins.” Thoreau had “in himself a vein of intellectual independence which resisted doctrinal or dogmatic conformity to any given religious tradition.”
Thoreau was “too non-conformist to adhere to any given Christian Church. It is this non-conformity that allowed him in all matters to strike out an independent line of thought and a distinctive way of life which was his own.” This was only an instance of his social non-conformity. Because of such a frame of mind he was open to all the fresh influences and was drawn towards Indian Philosophy.
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 upon the table land of the Ghauts.” 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.” He surrendered to nature and established a complete union with nature.
A Week on the Concord and Merimack Rivers 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.
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. He calls it one of the noblest and most sacred scriptures which have come down to us.
These references reflect Thoreau’s debt to India. Thoreau makes references to the Bhagavad Gita in his work Walden and also in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.
Thoreau as Yogi
Biographers say that Thoreau went to the Walden Pond to write his first book A Week on the Concord and Merimack 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.”
Thoreau made sincere efforts at moulding his life according to the dictates of the wisdom of India. To some extent Thoreau was a Yogi. In writing to a friend, Thoreau confessed: “I would fain practice yoga faithfully. To some extent and at rare intervals I am a yogi.”
Thoreau and Simplicity
Thoreau advocates the life of simplicity, a lesson which he had taught himself at Walden Pond and which he tried to teach others. 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.”
Thoreau and Indian Philosophy
Thoreau was influenced by the Hindu Philosophy, and the concepts of Indian thought are seen in his writings. He says in Walden, “There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was admirable to live.”
Thoreau not only preached but practiced simplicity and voluntary poverty. He says in Walden that the ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindu, Persian and Greek were a class among whom “none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward.”
Thoreau and Self-Realization
Vedanta Philosophy of India emphasizes the distinction between appearance and reality, man as he appears and man as he is. Thoreau was fascinated by the self-discovery parable of a young prince and 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 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 one’s action in the previous existences.
Thoreau reached the goal of spiritual reality. His understanding of the creativity of man and the world was his interest in the spiritual and the wild. Thoreau says in Walden: “The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar. I found in myself and still find an instinct toward a higher or as it is named, spiritual life as do most men and another towards a primitive rank and savage one and I reverence them both.”
Thoreau appreciates the philosophy of action without attachment in the Bhagavad Gita. He says in A Week: “But they, who are unconcerned about the consequences of their actions, are not therefore, unconcerned about their actions.”
End Notes
- 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. 67.
- Edited by G. Ramachandran, T.K. Mahadevan, Gandhi His relevance for our time. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Kapur Printing Press, 1964. 345.
- A.N. Divivedi, Studies in American Literature — Thoreau (A study). Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1974. 218-219.
- 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.
- R.K. Dhawan, Henry David Thoreau A study in Indian Influence. New Delhi: Classical Publishing, 1985. 75.
- Edited by Walter Harding, George Brenner & Paul Doyle, Henry David Thoreau Studies on commentaries. Fairleigh Dickension University Press, 1972.
- Arthur Christy, The Orient in American Transcendentalism. New York, 1932. 214.