Transcendentalists.Ralph Waldo Emersonread translations of Sanskrit, Pa ̄li,
and Persian literature which informed his Unitarian vision, while David
Henry Thoreaufound Indian ideas spiraling through his own reflections.
By the mid-nineteenth century, the United States’ interest in India had
reached a peak of sorts. Well over half of the ships in Calcutta harbor were
from the US. The completion of the railroad across the US was hailed by
Walt Whitman as a “passage” to India. Whitman gave further voice to this
romanticism in his Leaves of Grasswhere he describes India as the source of
“primeval thought,” “reason’s early paradise,” the “birthplace of wisdom,”
and the home of “innocent institutions” and “fair creation.”^24
The modern era
The impact of Indian religion on the “West” in the modern period might
be divided into three stages. The first was the period before the First World
War. Following on the heels of the fascination with India of European
romantics and German philosophers, there was a flood of translations
making accessible in English various texts of classical Indian thought. Max
Muller’s translations of the Sacred Books of the Eastwere an enormous
undertaking, and along with other texts, such as G. Buhler’s translations of
theLaws of Manu, and J. H. Woods’ translation of Patañjali’s Yogasu ̄ trasmade
classical India available for study and reflection.
But religious interest in India was also piqued by the visits of Swami
Vivekananda to the US. After lecturing at the Parliament of Religions in
Chicago in 1893, he was invited to lecture to a variety of groups in cities along
the eastern seaboard. He established “Veda ̄nta societies” in many of the
cities. Those Veda ̄nta centers were a highly protestantized form of Neo-
Hinduism which affirmed a simplified monism, the universality of truth, and
the divinity of man. Their chapels hosted worship on Sunday mornings; their
walls were lined with pictures of Christ along with those of Ra ̄makrishna,
Vivekananda’s mentor, and other Hindu and Buddhist figures. These
Veda ̄nta groups, still extant in North America, provided a mixture of medi-
tation, devotion, work, and thought. Another group through which Indian
ideas were filtered into Western idiom was the Theosophical Society. While
it claimed to be rooted in ancient Egyptian and Celtic mythology, it had
selectively borrowed from a Hindu vocabulary and both Madame Blavatsky,
its founder, and Annie Besantwere enamored of Indian thought. Indeed,
Annie Besant was so committed to India that she moved to Adyar, just outside
of Madras, to set up the international headquarters of the movement and
enter into the social and cultural life of her adopted country.
In addition to these two major sources of Indian ideas in North America,
there was a variety of other less well-known influences which left an impact
232 India’s Global Reach