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Vislumbres de la India
Vislumbres de la India fue el primer ensayo unitario que publicó Octavio Paz después de La llama doble. Si en La llama doble atendía a la relación entre amor y erotismo y a su significado último, en Vislumbres de la India llevó a cabo una recapitulación no sólo de su periodo de residencia continuada en dicho país -ante el que fue embajador desde 1962 hasta 1968- y sus viajes anteriores y posteriores a el, sino también de la huella cultural, artística, política y filosófica que la India dejó en su vivencia, y, mas allá o mas acá de ello, un examen de que cosa sea en si la India. Una India vivida en cuanto experiencia personal, en los reveladores capítulos autobiográficos que abren y cierran el volumen; una India, por otro lado, examinada en su complejidad nacional, religiosa e histórica.
Testimonio de la agudeza analítica de Octavio Paz, Vislumbres de la India supone además un reto para el lector occidental: al ampliar nuestro horizonte mediante la presentación de una realidad tan distinta como la del inmenso país, nos incita también a ahondar en la fértil discrepancia entre nuestra visión del mundo y las que ahí imperan, a trazar analogías o a perfilar contrastes que, al subvertir nuestra rutina, pueden permitirnos ver en nuestro entorno fecundas posibilidades latentes. El dialogo con la India es así, en la lucida y diáfana prosa de Octavio Paz, también un diálogo con la condición humana, también un dialogo con nosotros mismos.
Testimonio de la agudeza analítica de Octavio Paz, Vislumbres de la India supone además un reto para el lector occidental: al ampliar nuestro horizonte mediante la presentación de una realidad tan distinta como la del inmenso país, nos incita también a ahondar en la fértil discrepancia entre nuestra visión del mundo y las que ahí imperan, a trazar analogías o a perfilar contrastes que, al subvertir nuestra rutina, pueden permitirnos ver en nuestro entorno fecundas posibilidades latentes. El dialogo con la India es así, en la lucida y diáfana prosa de Octavio Paz, también un diálogo con la condición humana, también un dialogo con nosotros mismos.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
70 people are currently reading
1802 people want to read
About the author
Octavio Paz
541 books1,403 followersOctavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature ("for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.")
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
October 18, 2024
Even through the filter of translation from Spanish to English, Octavio Paz writes well. As soon as I read a few lines in the 2nd hand bookshop, I had to take In Light of India home. Paz is primarily known as a poet, winning the Nobel for Literature in 1990.
Paz held a number of diplomatic posts for Mexico. He ended up in Asia mostly, India and Japan. His first assignment as a junior was to India. On the ship there in 1951 (via Paris) he met an extraordinary array of people some we might now view as on the periphery of history: a Maharajah, the widow of Brancusi, the sculptor, a flock of Polish nuns, WH Auden’s brother, the author Santha Rau and her husband, former aide-de-camp to General Douglas McArthur. I only mention this because long-haul economy air travel never offers such opportunities. The world has well and truly changed since the 1950s.
Paz makes the point that this is not a memoir, but an essay. One of the directions it takes is to compare his home country (Mexico) to India. I find broad ranging comparisons pointless and yawned my way through these aspects. But to students of the period, both countries were on the cusp of something new. He does offer an interesting critique of capitalism and individualism as to their value to national development.
Paz wrote this essay may years after he moved on, in the 1990s; he died a few years later.
The most interesting parts of this is Paz’s lucid explanation of the caste system. By the time I learned about caste as a teenager it was seen as a profound evil system of control. What is far more interesting than that is for all its rigidity, it was not a class system, the lens through which I had learned about it. It may reinforce poverty and wealth and concentrate it, the overall impression I got is that it was a social system with a longevity of anywhere up to 3000 years. Even the Moghuls couldn’t disrupt it.
castes are part of the Hindu hierarchical system, but the basis of their order is neither money or power, but rather a religious notion.
Another point of interest was that in the cycle of reincarnation, Brahmins sit higher because they have been born as humans twice, bestowing superiority. Of course, it’s impossible to verify ones reincarnations. More likely social control by a few is a more compelling reason for caste. But with everyone in their own caste, there is a sense of belonging. For a moment, the world of order almost convinced me.
caste is one of the links in the chain of births and rebirths that make up existence, a chain of which all living things are part.
Except for the Dalit who do not have a caste and sit outside the system unprotected by its cultural norms. As do the sadhus, those gangly, ropey, wizened creatures seen all over India ash-covered and unkempt who choose to leave their cast and seek another path to enlightenment. But they are "sacred men" on a mission.
Pre-eminence of the collective: the individual is born, lives and dies in his caste. For us this would be intolerable. Along with change, the modern West glorifies the individual.
Despite his clear explanations, there was nothing romantic about the system of social order. I can only be an outsider to it.
The next most interest part is the adoption of Hindi as the official language for the new India. I didn’t know that Urdu (not just a language spoken in the west and now Pakistan) was rejected but it was also the most commonly spoken of the ancient living offshoots of Hindi. Hindi (or high Hindi) was barely spoken and exceeded in use by half a dozen other languages, even English had greater claims to use as a governing language. High Hindi, needed adaptation to become a living language like Urdu. Hindustani, Punjabi, Rajastani, Bengali, Marathi, Oriya and Bihari were all widely spoken in the regions. As I understand it, Hindi, Hindustani and Urdu are all derived from Sanskrit the way French, Italian, Spanish are derived from Latin.
When Hindi was adopted, Urdu was spurned, which put off the Muslim population among whom it was widely spoken. But Hindi had to be fashioned into a working language from bits and pieces. It didn’t come easy.
Paz, even in the 1990s, was up with the rise of nationalism in India. He saw the BJP as a party that would disrupt the notion of India as a successful constellation of disparate parts. Contemporary India is defined by Hindu nationalism. It’s ironic to think, though, that many of the sites we visit in India as tourists are of Moghul origin.
Here is my favourite thought from the book:
… ancient India had no notion of history. Time is a dream of Brahma. It is maya: an illusion.
Paz held a number of diplomatic posts for Mexico. He ended up in Asia mostly, India and Japan. His first assignment as a junior was to India. On the ship there in 1951 (via Paris) he met an extraordinary array of people some we might now view as on the periphery of history: a Maharajah, the widow of Brancusi, the sculptor, a flock of Polish nuns, WH Auden’s brother, the author Santha Rau and her husband, former aide-de-camp to General Douglas McArthur. I only mention this because long-haul economy air travel never offers such opportunities. The world has well and truly changed since the 1950s.
Paz makes the point that this is not a memoir, but an essay. One of the directions it takes is to compare his home country (Mexico) to India. I find broad ranging comparisons pointless and yawned my way through these aspects. But to students of the period, both countries were on the cusp of something new. He does offer an interesting critique of capitalism and individualism as to their value to national development.
Paz wrote this essay may years after he moved on, in the 1990s; he died a few years later.
The most interesting parts of this is Paz’s lucid explanation of the caste system. By the time I learned about caste as a teenager it was seen as a profound evil system of control. What is far more interesting than that is for all its rigidity, it was not a class system, the lens through which I had learned about it. It may reinforce poverty and wealth and concentrate it, the overall impression I got is that it was a social system with a longevity of anywhere up to 3000 years. Even the Moghuls couldn’t disrupt it.
castes are part of the Hindu hierarchical system, but the basis of their order is neither money or power, but rather a religious notion.
Another point of interest was that in the cycle of reincarnation, Brahmins sit higher because they have been born as humans twice, bestowing superiority. Of course, it’s impossible to verify ones reincarnations. More likely social control by a few is a more compelling reason for caste. But with everyone in their own caste, there is a sense of belonging. For a moment, the world of order almost convinced me.
caste is one of the links in the chain of births and rebirths that make up existence, a chain of which all living things are part.
Except for the Dalit who do not have a caste and sit outside the system unprotected by its cultural norms. As do the sadhus, those gangly, ropey, wizened creatures seen all over India ash-covered and unkempt who choose to leave their cast and seek another path to enlightenment. But they are "sacred men" on a mission.
Pre-eminence of the collective: the individual is born, lives and dies in his caste. For us this would be intolerable. Along with change, the modern West glorifies the individual.
Despite his clear explanations, there was nothing romantic about the system of social order. I can only be an outsider to it.
The next most interest part is the adoption of Hindi as the official language for the new India. I didn’t know that Urdu (not just a language spoken in the west and now Pakistan) was rejected but it was also the most commonly spoken of the ancient living offshoots of Hindi. Hindi (or high Hindi) was barely spoken and exceeded in use by half a dozen other languages, even English had greater claims to use as a governing language. High Hindi, needed adaptation to become a living language like Urdu. Hindustani, Punjabi, Rajastani, Bengali, Marathi, Oriya and Bihari were all widely spoken in the regions. As I understand it, Hindi, Hindustani and Urdu are all derived from Sanskrit the way French, Italian, Spanish are derived from Latin.
When Hindi was adopted, Urdu was spurned, which put off the Muslim population among whom it was widely spoken. But Hindi had to be fashioned into a working language from bits and pieces. It didn’t come easy.
Paz, even in the 1990s, was up with the rise of nationalism in India. He saw the BJP as a party that would disrupt the notion of India as a successful constellation of disparate parts. Contemporary India is defined by Hindu nationalism. It’s ironic to think, though, that many of the sites we visit in India as tourists are of Moghul origin.
Here is my favourite thought from the book:
… ancient India had no notion of history. Time is a dream of Brahma. It is maya: an illusion.
April 5, 2014
This is probably more a 4.75 and it really might be a 5. It's taken me most of the year to read as, for a small book, it's chocker-block with ideas to mull over and that requires think time. I found the perspective that Paz brings to the subjects he tackles refreshing. He is a Mexican with intimate knowledge of western philosophy, religion and culture, serving in a political capacity inside India during the 1950s - a time of great change and upheaval in India. His eye is honest and untampered. As an Anglo-Indian, I have often wondered about certain parts of my upbringing which were different from the dominant Western (English) culture. My attitudes towards time, for example, have always seemed out of step with Western culture, but I can now see are greatly influenced by the Hindu concept of time. It is comforting, if not affirming to know that my views are shared by a continent and that there is a place on this planet where my concepts of time could coexist peacefully with the dominate culture! Paz's style is conversational - you can imagine yourself with him in a cafe or walking along a river bank - and yet the very dense and difficult material is within my grasp without the feeling of being "dumbed down." We explore poetry, yogi and karma, the Jains and the Muslim/Hindu question. We tackle love and redemption, original sin and the Brahmins. Reincarnation, food and art. It's all there, all the aspect of India that are so difficult for Westerners to comprehend. This is a book that I intend to read again and again as it is one that will be different each time I pick it up.
December 11, 2018
This book is poetry in prose. Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet, Nobel Laureate and former ambassador to India, writes about India, its history, philosophy, poetry and culture with extraordinary grace and felicity. Paz is an obviously erudite man whose knowledge and depth of analysis is staggering, and informed by the common experience of colonialism both Mexico and India had to suffer. This makes the book free from the standard Western tropes that have come to shape the global image of India.
Paz touches upon an astounding variety of subjects, and all of them with brilliant originality, but I especially liked his analysis of Sanskrit poetry; his exploration of the erotic in Indian philosophy; his study of the conception of time in Indian, Chinese, Islamic and Christian cosmology and its rupture by the modern idea of linear progress; and his comparison of the colonial experiences of India and Mexico.
For instance, sample this comparative exposition on the meaning of time in India, Chinese and Islamic philosophies.
For Hinduism, time has no meaning, or, more exactly, it has no meaning other than its obliteration by total Being, as Krishna tells Arjuna. This conception of time explains the absence of a historical consciousness among Hindus. India has had great poets, philosophers, architects, and painters, but it has never, until modern times, had a great historian. Among the various means of negating time among the Hindus, there are two that are particularly astonishing: metaphysical negation and social negation. The first prevented the birth of that literary, scientific, and philosophical genre we call history. The second, the institution of the castes, immobilized society.
The contrast with the Muslims and the Chinese is remarkable. For the Chinese, perfection was in the past. Confucius remarked: “I do not invent, I transmit. I believe in Antiquity and I love it.” Civilization is an order that is no different from the natural and cosmic order: it is a rhythm. Barbarianism is the transgression of the rules of nature, the confusion of the heavenly principle with the earthly, the mixing of the five elements and the four points of the horizon: a rupture of the cosmic rhythm. Barbarianism is not anterior to history; it is outside of it. The dawn of civilization, the mythic happy age of the Yellow Emperor, is also its noon, its highest moment. The apogee is at the birth, the beginning is perfection and therefore the archetype for excellence. Antiquity is perfect because it represents the state of harmony between the natural world and the social world. Thus the importance of the five Classic Books: They are the source of political knowledge and the foundation of the art of government; politics is one part of the theory of universal correspondence; music, poetry, dance, and the rites are political because they are rhythm; the imitation of the ancients is the path to knowledge and virtuous government. The Taoist heterodoxy did not believe in the classics or in civilization or in virtue, in the sense given these words by Confucius and his disciples, but agreed with them in seeing nature as a model: wisdom is in accord with the rhythm of nature, knowledge is not a knowing, but a tuning of the soul. The meaning of time is in the past; Antiquity is the sun that illuminates our works, judges our acts, guides our steps.
Among the Muslims, history is a chronicle, not a meditation on time. Ibn Khaldun, however, divides human societies into two groups: primitive cultures and civilizations. The former, whether nomadic or sedentary, do not properly understand history: tied to the earth or wandering in the desert, they live permanently in the same time. Civilizations are born, reach their apogee, decline and disappear: goats come to graze around their ruined stones. Civilizations are individual organisms, each one with its own characteristics, but all are subject to the laws of birth and death. And yet they contain a timeless element: religion. True perfection is not in time but in religions—above all, in the ultimate religion, Islam, which is the definitive revelation.
As you may have realized, In Light of India is not an easy book to read - Paz packs in a lot of punch in less than 200 pages - but there's loads to learn from this book, not just about India and the world, but also about the effective use of language, how a combination of the right words elevates a text from the category of knowledge to the category of wisdom. Paz truly reveals himself as a first-rate poet even in this eccentric collection of reflective essays.
Highly recommended!
Paz touches upon an astounding variety of subjects, and all of them with brilliant originality, but I especially liked his analysis of Sanskrit poetry; his exploration of the erotic in Indian philosophy; his study of the conception of time in Indian, Chinese, Islamic and Christian cosmology and its rupture by the modern idea of linear progress; and his comparison of the colonial experiences of India and Mexico.
For instance, sample this comparative exposition on the meaning of time in India, Chinese and Islamic philosophies.
For Hinduism, time has no meaning, or, more exactly, it has no meaning other than its obliteration by total Being, as Krishna tells Arjuna. This conception of time explains the absence of a historical consciousness among Hindus. India has had great poets, philosophers, architects, and painters, but it has never, until modern times, had a great historian. Among the various means of negating time among the Hindus, there are two that are particularly astonishing: metaphysical negation and social negation. The first prevented the birth of that literary, scientific, and philosophical genre we call history. The second, the institution of the castes, immobilized society.
The contrast with the Muslims and the Chinese is remarkable. For the Chinese, perfection was in the past. Confucius remarked: “I do not invent, I transmit. I believe in Antiquity and I love it.” Civilization is an order that is no different from the natural and cosmic order: it is a rhythm. Barbarianism is the transgression of the rules of nature, the confusion of the heavenly principle with the earthly, the mixing of the five elements and the four points of the horizon: a rupture of the cosmic rhythm. Barbarianism is not anterior to history; it is outside of it. The dawn of civilization, the mythic happy age of the Yellow Emperor, is also its noon, its highest moment. The apogee is at the birth, the beginning is perfection and therefore the archetype for excellence. Antiquity is perfect because it represents the state of harmony between the natural world and the social world. Thus the importance of the five Classic Books: They are the source of political knowledge and the foundation of the art of government; politics is one part of the theory of universal correspondence; music, poetry, dance, and the rites are political because they are rhythm; the imitation of the ancients is the path to knowledge and virtuous government. The Taoist heterodoxy did not believe in the classics or in civilization or in virtue, in the sense given these words by Confucius and his disciples, but agreed with them in seeing nature as a model: wisdom is in accord with the rhythm of nature, knowledge is not a knowing, but a tuning of the soul. The meaning of time is in the past; Antiquity is the sun that illuminates our works, judges our acts, guides our steps.
Among the Muslims, history is a chronicle, not a meditation on time. Ibn Khaldun, however, divides human societies into two groups: primitive cultures and civilizations. The former, whether nomadic or sedentary, do not properly understand history: tied to the earth or wandering in the desert, they live permanently in the same time. Civilizations are born, reach their apogee, decline and disappear: goats come to graze around their ruined stones. Civilizations are individual organisms, each one with its own characteristics, but all are subject to the laws of birth and death. And yet they contain a timeless element: religion. True perfection is not in time but in religions—above all, in the ultimate religion, Islam, which is the definitive revelation.
As you may have realized, In Light of India is not an easy book to read - Paz packs in a lot of punch in less than 200 pages - but there's loads to learn from this book, not just about India and the world, but also about the effective use of language, how a combination of the right words elevates a text from the category of knowledge to the category of wisdom. Paz truly reveals himself as a first-rate poet even in this eccentric collection of reflective essays.
Highly recommended!
February 24, 2015
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
- Robert Burns
I loved this vision of India through the eyes of a foreigner: one that can see beyond the snake charmers and whose eyes are not clouded by the mystic balderdash of the "mysterious East".
Paz seems to be one person who has really understood the concept of India - because India is, ultimately, a concept.
August 25, 2007
This book is amazing. Reading about India in the words of Octavio Paz has been a truly different kind of experience for me. His constant references to Mexico and Mesoamerican civilization draw some really interesting comparisons and revelations. His perspective on India is so completely fascinating and unique, I couldn't put this book down. Additionally, the way he writes is just pure art. I need to read some other things by him.
January 14, 2022
An eccentric and contradictory set of essays by a former Mexican diplomatic official based India, effectively a personal diary of the many thoughts that the country had provoked in him while staying there. This is not a book for experts or academics or even people who feel that they know a lot about South Asia for one reason or another. It is more like a wildly sweeping primer on the history, social dynamics, and philosophy of the country. In found that Paz was well-intentioned and also a decent writer but he also contradicts himself from page to page and casts off half-formed thoughts casually across entire chapters. This book seems to be adored by a lot of people and I didn't mind it but nor did it speak to me or leave me with many resonant thoughts.
August 19, 2010
Who could explain India? No one, not in the whole, but Paz gives it a loving and illuminating go.
February 1, 2008
Este libro se ha convertido en un libro de cabecera.
Mientras algunos de los comentarios de Paz ya no son válidos otros si lo son. Ya no son válidos sus comentarios acerca del idioma. Efectivamente el pensaba que había sido un error escoger el Hindi como idioma oficinal en vez del Ourdu o el Hindustani. En la época de Paz, aquí en India, de los tres idiomas el hindi era el menos hablado.
Sin embargo, sus comentarios acerca de las similitudes entre México e India son válidas y he encontrado aun más puntos similares, sus comentarios acerca de la religión siguen siendo válidos.
Además, es muy emocionante encontrarme con Indios que piensan que es uno de los más bellos libros escritos sobre la India por un extranjero.
Tuve el placer de encontrarme con un señora hija de un pintor muy famoso de la India que conoció a Octavio Paz.
Al saber que era mexicana me dijo: "Fui a México el año pasado para ver y estar debajo del sol de Paz. Paz es mi guru"
Mientras algunos de los comentarios de Paz ya no son válidos otros si lo son. Ya no son válidos sus comentarios acerca del idioma. Efectivamente el pensaba que había sido un error escoger el Hindi como idioma oficinal en vez del Ourdu o el Hindustani. En la época de Paz, aquí en India, de los tres idiomas el hindi era el menos hablado.
Sin embargo, sus comentarios acerca de las similitudes entre México e India son válidas y he encontrado aun más puntos similares, sus comentarios acerca de la religión siguen siendo válidos.
Además, es muy emocionante encontrarme con Indios que piensan que es uno de los más bellos libros escritos sobre la India por un extranjero.
Tuve el placer de encontrarme con un señora hija de un pintor muy famoso de la India que conoció a Octavio Paz.
Al saber que era mexicana me dijo: "Fui a México el año pasado para ver y estar debajo del sol de Paz. Paz es mi guru"
July 20, 2011
I like this author, and I am interested in India, so I thought this might be a good book. It was a little dull and too full of facts for my taste. I was really hoping to get an account of life in India from a Mexican, but mostly I felt like I was being schooled in Indian history. He talks a lot about religion, but only a little bit about the religious tension in India; mostly he just describes the dogma and writings of religion. My favorite part was when he compared Mexico and India. :) I was disappointed by most of the book; if you already know about Indian history, you will be bored by this book.
February 27, 2015
I always enjoy the minute poetry in every sentence that Paz constructs, because they are like strings in a tapestry. This book is a work of art, filled with insight on Mexico, India, nationalism, colonialism, and expressing the human experience to discover identity through literature.
August 28, 2009
I wanted more of his personal experiences of living in India compared with the country's religious history.
April 30, 2020
I was supposed to travel to India in March for a work trip (which was obviously cancelled) and knowing precious little about the country, wanted to find some books to help close the gap. In Prospect Magazine's FiveBooks feature, Pankaj Mishra had listed Octavio Paz's In Light of India as one of the five books he would pick in his intro kit to India. He described it as "easily the most accessible and stimulating introduction to India that you can read…The book is also important because it offers a perspective that is very rarely found in books about India, which are mostly written by Europeans and Americans. Paz comes from a society which has had a somewhat similar experience to India - in terms of dealing with an extremely conservative-minded colonialism, and coming out of that and trying to construct a modern nation state."
India is a study in contrasts - "modernity and antiquity, luxury and poverty, sensuality and asceticism, carelessness and efficiency, gentleness and violence; a multiplicity of castes and languages, gods and rites, customs and ideas, rivers and deserts, plains and mountains, cities and villages, rural and industrial life" - that Paz slowly helps unpack. It helps that Paz, a poet, writes beautifully. He describes his initial impressions of Bombay and Delhi in evocative and lyrical language:
" New Delhi is unreal, like the Gothic architecture of nineteenth-century London or the Babylon of Cecil B. DeMille. That is to say, it is an assemblage of images more than buildings. Its aesthetic equivalent is to be found in novels, not in architecture: wandering the city is like passing through the pages of Victor Hugo, Walter Scott, or Alexander Dumas…"
Or: "In Islamic architecture, nothing is sculptural - exactly the opposite of the Hindu. One of the great attractions of [Islamic] buildings is that they are surrounded by gardens ruled by a geometry made of variations that regularly repeat themselves. A combination of multicoloured expanses and avenues of sand bordered by palms. Between them, huge rectangular pools reflect, according to the hour and the changing light, different aspects of the unmoving buildings and the crossing clouds. Untiring games of light and time, always differnet and always the same. The water performs a double and magical function: to reflect the world and to scatter it. We see and then we don't see; all that remains is a fistful of fleeting images. There is nothing terrifying in these tombs: they give the sensation of infinity and pacify the soul. The simplicity and harmony of their forms satisfy one of the most profound necessities of the spirit: the longing for order, the love of proportion. At the same time, they arouse our fantasies. These monuments and gardens incite us to dream and fly. They are magic carpets."
The section on Religion, Castes and Languages was illuminating, as it unpacked some of the fundamental factors that have shaped India. How Hinduism began and evolved in India whereas Islam is a religion that came into India by conquest, fully formed and regarded as complete. And the two have since coexisted side by side with "no fusion of the two". How castes are defined by blood (one's birth), the place or area where one lives, one's trade or profession. And the only way out of a caste is to renounce the world as a hermit. The complexities of language in India - the traditional and national language for Muslims was Urdu, yet Subhas Chandra Bose fought to have Hindi established as the national language, even though it is seen as a foreign language in most of the country.
The section A Project of Nationhood delves into the challenges of the Indian statehood - having to build a modern state atop the foundations of an ancient history, needing to find a way for all its diverse races, languages and cultures to co-exist peacefully (for unlike the US, which has used the "melting pot" concept and English as a means of unifying its diverse population, India uses the caste system to allow all these groups to co-exist in a single hierarchy), that India's dominant religions, Hinduism and Islam, never having undergone the equivalent of a Reformation or a Renaissance, did not experience the equivalent of Enlightenment and have struggled to find relevance in modern political movements.
Paz's observations are sharp - he comments that Christianity failed to take root in countries like China and India because the form of the religion - its emphasis on monotheism - was simply incompatible with local practices. Christianity was "a religion poor in rites and ceremonies but full of moral and sexual rigidity. In other words: the exact opposite of popular Hinduism."
The section The Full and the Empty, on the Indian art and in particular poetry, was a bit of a struggle for me. I've never been much of a poetry reader. I did appreciate how Paz unpacked eroticism in Indian art in contrast to Western art. In the modern Western tradition, eroticism is a form of violation, something out of bounds and forbidden. The body is seen as corrupt, something that ultimately decays. In Hinduism, the gods and goddesses are seen as having an "immense creative force". The body, sexuality and eroticism are therefore associated with the sacred.
Overall, I found Paz's book to be a thought provoking and decent introduction to India. I suspect I didn't find it as accessible as Mishra did - I did have to re-read various passages to figure out what exactly Paz was trying to say. I think that probably stemmed from the fact that Paz's book was less of a straightforward narrative project - to describe scenes from India, or to recount its history - but an attempt to distil and process his own impressions, reflections and conclusions about India. This requires reading the book on more than one level.
India is a study in contrasts - "modernity and antiquity, luxury and poverty, sensuality and asceticism, carelessness and efficiency, gentleness and violence; a multiplicity of castes and languages, gods and rites, customs and ideas, rivers and deserts, plains and mountains, cities and villages, rural and industrial life" - that Paz slowly helps unpack. It helps that Paz, a poet, writes beautifully. He describes his initial impressions of Bombay and Delhi in evocative and lyrical language:
" New Delhi is unreal, like the Gothic architecture of nineteenth-century London or the Babylon of Cecil B. DeMille. That is to say, it is an assemblage of images more than buildings. Its aesthetic equivalent is to be found in novels, not in architecture: wandering the city is like passing through the pages of Victor Hugo, Walter Scott, or Alexander Dumas…"
Or: "In Islamic architecture, nothing is sculptural - exactly the opposite of the Hindu. One of the great attractions of [Islamic] buildings is that they are surrounded by gardens ruled by a geometry made of variations that regularly repeat themselves. A combination of multicoloured expanses and avenues of sand bordered by palms. Between them, huge rectangular pools reflect, according to the hour and the changing light, different aspects of the unmoving buildings and the crossing clouds. Untiring games of light and time, always differnet and always the same. The water performs a double and magical function: to reflect the world and to scatter it. We see and then we don't see; all that remains is a fistful of fleeting images. There is nothing terrifying in these tombs: they give the sensation of infinity and pacify the soul. The simplicity and harmony of their forms satisfy one of the most profound necessities of the spirit: the longing for order, the love of proportion. At the same time, they arouse our fantasies. These monuments and gardens incite us to dream and fly. They are magic carpets."
The section on Religion, Castes and Languages was illuminating, as it unpacked some of the fundamental factors that have shaped India. How Hinduism began and evolved in India whereas Islam is a religion that came into India by conquest, fully formed and regarded as complete. And the two have since coexisted side by side with "no fusion of the two". How castes are defined by blood (one's birth), the place or area where one lives, one's trade or profession. And the only way out of a caste is to renounce the world as a hermit. The complexities of language in India - the traditional and national language for Muslims was Urdu, yet Subhas Chandra Bose fought to have Hindi established as the national language, even though it is seen as a foreign language in most of the country.
The section A Project of Nationhood delves into the challenges of the Indian statehood - having to build a modern state atop the foundations of an ancient history, needing to find a way for all its diverse races, languages and cultures to co-exist peacefully (for unlike the US, which has used the "melting pot" concept and English as a means of unifying its diverse population, India uses the caste system to allow all these groups to co-exist in a single hierarchy), that India's dominant religions, Hinduism and Islam, never having undergone the equivalent of a Reformation or a Renaissance, did not experience the equivalent of Enlightenment and have struggled to find relevance in modern political movements.
Paz's observations are sharp - he comments that Christianity failed to take root in countries like China and India because the form of the religion - its emphasis on monotheism - was simply incompatible with local practices. Christianity was "a religion poor in rites and ceremonies but full of moral and sexual rigidity. In other words: the exact opposite of popular Hinduism."
The section The Full and the Empty, on the Indian art and in particular poetry, was a bit of a struggle for me. I've never been much of a poetry reader. I did appreciate how Paz unpacked eroticism in Indian art in contrast to Western art. In the modern Western tradition, eroticism is a form of violation, something out of bounds and forbidden. The body is seen as corrupt, something that ultimately decays. In Hinduism, the gods and goddesses are seen as having an "immense creative force". The body, sexuality and eroticism are therefore associated with the sacred.
Overall, I found Paz's book to be a thought provoking and decent introduction to India. I suspect I didn't find it as accessible as Mishra did - I did have to re-read various passages to figure out what exactly Paz was trying to say. I think that probably stemmed from the fact that Paz's book was less of a straightforward narrative project - to describe scenes from India, or to recount its history - but an attempt to distil and process his own impressions, reflections and conclusions about India. This requires reading the book on more than one level.
March 10, 2025
Un libro que aunque corto lleva muchas reflexiones acerca de una sociedad muy rica. Me sorpredio sobretodo su simil con partes de la cultira occidental y como uno tiene el concepto que somos muy diferentes, podemls tener tambien muchos puntos en comun. Denso, pero definitivamente vale la pena
March 1, 2022
02/28/2022
An important read for me three years ago when we thought about visiting India for a wedding, this essay collection felt so compact and grandiose at the same time, every paragraph distilling years of knowledge in poetic and beautiful sentences. Perhaps there's a novelty effect, or the books I read afterwards countered the idea that India and its politics and religions could be presented in an easily digestible manner, but this book doesn't hold the sway and esteem once held. The sections on poetry and his tales of his sojourns around the country remain mesmerizing, and should be the main reason one has for giving this book a go.
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01/29/2019
This book is an absolute gem, a tour de force half-commentary-half-poetry breakdown of Indian politics, history, religion, and society. There were entire chapters where I couldn't stop smiling, out of sheer appreciation for the talent and breadth of knowledge that goes into making such a beauty of a book.
India is a concept, an idea, unfamiliar and indescribable from a Western point of view. It takes a poet it seems to point out all that information necessary to understand a culture or a philosophy or a religion, where to shine the light and how to look at something so beyond what you're used to; in so doing, I feel I learned just as much about my own Western roots reading this book as I did about the Indian subcontinent.
I can't recommend this book highly enough.
An important read for me three years ago when we thought about visiting India for a wedding, this essay collection felt so compact and grandiose at the same time, every paragraph distilling years of knowledge in poetic and beautiful sentences. Perhaps there's a novelty effect, or the books I read afterwards countered the idea that India and its politics and religions could be presented in an easily digestible manner, but this book doesn't hold the sway and esteem once held. The sections on poetry and his tales of his sojourns around the country remain mesmerizing, and should be the main reason one has for giving this book a go.
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01/29/2019
PROOF
Her skin, saffron toasted in the sun,
eyes darting like a gazelle.
—That god who made her, how could he
have let her go? Was he blind?
—This wonder is not the result of blindness:
she is a woman, and a sinuous vine.
The Buddha’s doctrine thus is proved:
nothing in this world was created.
This book is an absolute gem, a tour de force half-commentary-half-poetry breakdown of Indian politics, history, religion, and society. There were entire chapters where I couldn't stop smiling, out of sheer appreciation for the talent and breadth of knowledge that goes into making such a beauty of a book.
India is a concept, an idea, unfamiliar and indescribable from a Western point of view. It takes a poet it seems to point out all that information necessary to understand a culture or a philosophy or a religion, where to shine the light and how to look at something so beyond what you're used to; in so doing, I feel I learned just as much about my own Western roots reading this book as I did about the Indian subcontinent.
I can't recommend this book highly enough.
September 11, 2012
How good a literature can go? Though lived in India for long time, I personally was never exposed to the artistic and poetic heritage of golden era of Hinduism/India/Budhism. Whenever I used to hear about empire of Indian (civilization) around the middle of first millennium, it always used to raise more question to me. Why that era is considered empire, whether it was cultural superiority, religious humility coming from passive teaching of Budhism/Jainism with a learning of Vedas & revival of Hinduism by Shankracharya... What was the need of "ZERO"... Why the erotic art in Temples.. Though Octavio Paz didnt answer all these questions, but opened the door which try to lead to the answer with different paths. Have to say sometimes, this is less of commoner literature , more of 7th to 13th century Sanskrit and other contemporary languages (Poems) Anthology..
August 9, 2018
Octavio Paz offers his incisive insights as a foreigner about various aspects of India - the idea of India as a nation, its history, culture, cuisine, Sanskrit poetry, philosophy, religion, the independence struggle and partition. He compares Mexican history with that of India and Hinduism (and not the abhorrent Hindutva form) with Christianity.
December 21, 2014
The first part,the author's arrival and first impressions of India, is the most interesting. Also the comparisons between Mexican and Indian culture. The second half is less personal and more esoteric- an attempt to explain Indian religious diversity.
October 29, 2007
Great book. Especially learned alot from Paz's insightful comparisons between Hindu and Islamic philosophy and culture, Hinduism and Christianity, as well as between India and Mexico.
September 16, 2019
If you are interested about the poetic version of India, Definitely read this marvelous book-this has everything include Indian civilization, religion, philosophy, history etc . Indians and Mexicans should read it.
...................
Paris for me is a city that, more than invented, is reconstructed by memory and the imagination. I saw a few friends, French and foreign, sometimes in their apartments, but usually in the cafés and bars. In Paris, as in other Latin cities, one lives more in the streets than at home.,,,,
Knowing that I was being sent to India consoled me a little: rituals, temples, cities whose names evoked strange tales, motley and multicolored crowds, women with feline grace and dark and shining eyes, saints, beggars….
Elephanta caves, Mumbai-- I entered a world made of shadows and sudden brightness. The play of the light, the vastness of the space and its irregular form, the figures carved on the walls: all of it gave the place a sacred character, sacred in the deepest meaning of the word. In the shadows were the powerful reliefs and statues, many of them mutilated by the fanaticism of the Portuguese and the Muslims, but all of them majestic, solid, made of a solar material. Corporeal beauty, turned into living stone. Divinities of the earth, sexual incarnations of the most abstract thought, gods that were simultaneously intellectual and carnal, terrible and peaceful.
That interminable journey, with its stations full of people and the vendors of trinkets and sweets, made me think of some lines from a Mexican in the twentieth, Ramón López Velarde: My country: your house is still so vast that the train going by seems like a Christmas box from a toyshop. The strangeness of India brought to mind that other strangeness: my own country. I had just written The Labyrinth of Solitude, an attempt to answer the question that Mexico asked me; now India was asking another question, one that was far more vast and enigmatic.
Gothic architecture is the music turned to stone; one could say that Hindu architecture is sculpted dance. The Absolute, the principle in whose matrix all contradictions dissolve (Brahma), is “neither this nor this nor this.” It is the way in which the great temples at Ellora, Ajanta, Karli, and other sites were built, carved out of mountains. In Islamic architecture, nothing is sculptural—exactly the opposite of the Hindu. The Red Fort, on the bank of the wide Jamuna River, is as powerful as a fort and as graceful as a palace. It is difficult to think of another tower that combines the height, solidity, and slender elegance of the Qutab Minar. The reddish stone, contrasting with the transparency of the air and the blue of the sky, gives the monument a vertical dynamism, like a huge rocket aimed at the stars. The mausoleum is like a poem made not of words but of trees, pools, avenues of sand and flowers: strict meters that cross and recross in angles that are obvious but no less surprising rhymes. Everything has been transformed into a construction made of cubes, hemispheres, and arcs: the universe reduced to its essential geometric elements. The abolition of time turned into space, space turned into a collection of shapes that are simultaneously solid and light, creations of another space, made of air. There is nothing terrifying in these tombs: they give the sensation of infinity and pacify the soul. The simplicity and harmony of their forms satisfy one of the most profound necessities of the spirit: the longing for order, the love of proportion. At the same time they arouse our fantasies. These monuments and gardens incite us to dream and to fly. They are magic carpets. Compare Ellora with the Taj Mahal, or the frescoes of Ajanta with Mughal miniatures. These are not distinct artistic styles, but rather two different visions of the world.
In Indian stories, genres that are separate in our tradition combine in surprising ways: the fairy tale and the picaresque novel . It is a characteristic of the Indian people: frank realism allied with delirious fantasy, a refined astuteness with an innocent credulity. Contradictory and constant pairs in the Indian soul, like sensuality and asceticism, the eagerness for material well being and the cult of poverty and disinterest.
But the most remarkable aspect of India, and the one that defines it, is neither political nor economic, but religious: the coexistence of Hinduism and Islam. The presence of the strictest and most extreme form of monotheism alongside the richest and most varied polytheism is, more than a historical paradox, a deep wound. Between Islam and Hinduism there is not only an opposition, but an incompatibility. In one, the theology is rigid and simple; in the other, the variety of doctrines and sects induces a kind of vertigo. In one case, a creator god; in the other, the wheel of successive cosmic eras with its procession of gods and civilizations. India owes to Islam some sublime works of art, particularly in architecture and, to a lesser degree, in painting, but not a single new or original thought. .
Hinduism is a conglomeration of beliefs and rituals; although it lacks missionaries, its power of assimilation is immense. It does not know conversion in the Christian or Muslim sense, but it practices, with great success, appropriation. Like an enormous metaphysical boa, Hinduism slowly and relentlessly digests foreign cultures, gods, languages, and beliefs. Hinduism does not convert individuals; it absorbs communities and tribes, their gods and rites.
The caste system was not founded by a mythical hero. It was born by itself, although by divine, cosmic will, from the soil and subsoil of the society, like a plant. Caste is jāti, and jāti is species. Caste is, in a way, a product of nature. Caste was born from the combination of all these ethnic, geographical, historical, and religious factors. It is a social phenomenon whose basis is religious: the idea of purity, which in turn is founded on the karmic law that we are the consequence of our past lives.
A duality: the Tantric feast is the central part of a sexual rite and thus the exact counterpart of the fasts and chastity practiced by other devotees. They are the two extremes of Hindu religious life, like two mirrors facing each other with opposite images. One might say that Hindu civilization is the theater of a dialogue between One and Zero, being and emptiness, Yes and No. The sannyāsi abandons his caste, his family, his property, and his city to become a wandering ascetic. The fast negates the feast, the silence of the mystic negates the words of the poet and the philosopher.
One of the great creations of Mexican Catholicism was the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe to a Mexican Indian, on the same hill where, before the Conquest, a pre-Hispanic goddess had been worshiped. Catholicism was able to take root in Mexico by transforming the ancient gods into the saints, virgins, and devils of the new religion. Nothing similar could occur in India with Muslim monotheism or Protestant Christianity, both of which saw the cult of images, of saints and virgins, as idolatry. The Christianity imported by the British was poor in rites and ceremonies, but full of moral and sexual rigidity. In other words: the exact opposite of popular Hinduism. Similarly, in Christian asceticism, the central concept is redemption; in India, it is liberation. These two words encompass opposite ideas of this world and the next, of the body and the soul.
Jean-Alphonse Benard has correctly observed that “the political problem of India, now as before, is not the irreconcilable conflict between tradition and modernity, authority and democracy, but the excessive polarization of power at the top. But one must bear in mind the traditional tendency toward separation and fragmentation. This is the reality that had to be confronted equally by the Maurya and Gupta empires, by the Mughals and the British. It is a history of two thousand years of struggle between separatism and centralism.
We are witnessing now, at the end of the century, the resurrection of ethnic and psychic passions, beliefs, ideas, and realities that seemed to have been long buried. The return of religious passion and nationalist fervor hides an ambiguous meaning: Is it the return of ghosts and demons that reason had exorcised, or is it the revelation of profound truths and realities that had been ignored by our proud intellectual constructs?
Rāgas are soliloquies and meditations, passionate melodies that draw circles and triangles in a mental space, a geometry of sounds that can turn a room into a fountain, a spring, a pool. What I learned from music—besides the pleasure of walking through those galleries of echoes and gardens of transparent trees, where sounds think and thoughts dance—was something that I also found in Indian poetry and thought: the tension between wholeness and emptiness, the continual coming and going between the two.
Bhagavad-Gītā -- Arjuna sees Arjuna in combat and knows that he is and is not Arjuna; the true Arjuna is neither the combatant nor he who is watching the combat, but another, who has no name and who only is. In that same instant, the future vanishes and time dissolves: Arjuna becomes free of Arjuna. Who performs the act, and when? Everything happens in an eternal now, without antecedents or consequences, with no yesterday or tomorrow. Action without action is identical to liberation. The act executed by Arjuna: is it an act, or has it also vanished, along with the hero and his victims?
...................
Paris for me is a city that, more than invented, is reconstructed by memory and the imagination. I saw a few friends, French and foreign, sometimes in their apartments, but usually in the cafés and bars. In Paris, as in other Latin cities, one lives more in the streets than at home.,,,,
Knowing that I was being sent to India consoled me a little: rituals, temples, cities whose names evoked strange tales, motley and multicolored crowds, women with feline grace and dark and shining eyes, saints, beggars….
Elephanta caves, Mumbai-- I entered a world made of shadows and sudden brightness. The play of the light, the vastness of the space and its irregular form, the figures carved on the walls: all of it gave the place a sacred character, sacred in the deepest meaning of the word. In the shadows were the powerful reliefs and statues, many of them mutilated by the fanaticism of the Portuguese and the Muslims, but all of them majestic, solid, made of a solar material. Corporeal beauty, turned into living stone. Divinities of the earth, sexual incarnations of the most abstract thought, gods that were simultaneously intellectual and carnal, terrible and peaceful.
That interminable journey, with its stations full of people and the vendors of trinkets and sweets, made me think of some lines from a Mexican in the twentieth, Ramón López Velarde: My country: your house is still so vast that the train going by seems like a Christmas box from a toyshop. The strangeness of India brought to mind that other strangeness: my own country. I had just written The Labyrinth of Solitude, an attempt to answer the question that Mexico asked me; now India was asking another question, one that was far more vast and enigmatic.
Gothic architecture is the music turned to stone; one could say that Hindu architecture is sculpted dance. The Absolute, the principle in whose matrix all contradictions dissolve (Brahma), is “neither this nor this nor this.” It is the way in which the great temples at Ellora, Ajanta, Karli, and other sites were built, carved out of mountains. In Islamic architecture, nothing is sculptural—exactly the opposite of the Hindu. The Red Fort, on the bank of the wide Jamuna River, is as powerful as a fort and as graceful as a palace. It is difficult to think of another tower that combines the height, solidity, and slender elegance of the Qutab Minar. The reddish stone, contrasting with the transparency of the air and the blue of the sky, gives the monument a vertical dynamism, like a huge rocket aimed at the stars. The mausoleum is like a poem made not of words but of trees, pools, avenues of sand and flowers: strict meters that cross and recross in angles that are obvious but no less surprising rhymes. Everything has been transformed into a construction made of cubes, hemispheres, and arcs: the universe reduced to its essential geometric elements. The abolition of time turned into space, space turned into a collection of shapes that are simultaneously solid and light, creations of another space, made of air. There is nothing terrifying in these tombs: they give the sensation of infinity and pacify the soul. The simplicity and harmony of their forms satisfy one of the most profound necessities of the spirit: the longing for order, the love of proportion. At the same time they arouse our fantasies. These monuments and gardens incite us to dream and to fly. They are magic carpets. Compare Ellora with the Taj Mahal, or the frescoes of Ajanta with Mughal miniatures. These are not distinct artistic styles, but rather two different visions of the world.
In Indian stories, genres that are separate in our tradition combine in surprising ways: the fairy tale and the picaresque novel . It is a characteristic of the Indian people: frank realism allied with delirious fantasy, a refined astuteness with an innocent credulity. Contradictory and constant pairs in the Indian soul, like sensuality and asceticism, the eagerness for material well being and the cult of poverty and disinterest.
But the most remarkable aspect of India, and the one that defines it, is neither political nor economic, but religious: the coexistence of Hinduism and Islam. The presence of the strictest and most extreme form of monotheism alongside the richest and most varied polytheism is, more than a historical paradox, a deep wound. Between Islam and Hinduism there is not only an opposition, but an incompatibility. In one, the theology is rigid and simple; in the other, the variety of doctrines and sects induces a kind of vertigo. In one case, a creator god; in the other, the wheel of successive cosmic eras with its procession of gods and civilizations. India owes to Islam some sublime works of art, particularly in architecture and, to a lesser degree, in painting, but not a single new or original thought. .
Hinduism is a conglomeration of beliefs and rituals; although it lacks missionaries, its power of assimilation is immense. It does not know conversion in the Christian or Muslim sense, but it practices, with great success, appropriation. Like an enormous metaphysical boa, Hinduism slowly and relentlessly digests foreign cultures, gods, languages, and beliefs. Hinduism does not convert individuals; it absorbs communities and tribes, their gods and rites.
The caste system was not founded by a mythical hero. It was born by itself, although by divine, cosmic will, from the soil and subsoil of the society, like a plant. Caste is jāti, and jāti is species. Caste is, in a way, a product of nature. Caste was born from the combination of all these ethnic, geographical, historical, and religious factors. It is a social phenomenon whose basis is religious: the idea of purity, which in turn is founded on the karmic law that we are the consequence of our past lives.
A duality: the Tantric feast is the central part of a sexual rite and thus the exact counterpart of the fasts and chastity practiced by other devotees. They are the two extremes of Hindu religious life, like two mirrors facing each other with opposite images. One might say that Hindu civilization is the theater of a dialogue between One and Zero, being and emptiness, Yes and No. The sannyāsi abandons his caste, his family, his property, and his city to become a wandering ascetic. The fast negates the feast, the silence of the mystic negates the words of the poet and the philosopher.
One of the great creations of Mexican Catholicism was the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe to a Mexican Indian, on the same hill where, before the Conquest, a pre-Hispanic goddess had been worshiped. Catholicism was able to take root in Mexico by transforming the ancient gods into the saints, virgins, and devils of the new religion. Nothing similar could occur in India with Muslim monotheism or Protestant Christianity, both of which saw the cult of images, of saints and virgins, as idolatry. The Christianity imported by the British was poor in rites and ceremonies, but full of moral and sexual rigidity. In other words: the exact opposite of popular Hinduism. Similarly, in Christian asceticism, the central concept is redemption; in India, it is liberation. These two words encompass opposite ideas of this world and the next, of the body and the soul.
Jean-Alphonse Benard has correctly observed that “the political problem of India, now as before, is not the irreconcilable conflict between tradition and modernity, authority and democracy, but the excessive polarization of power at the top. But one must bear in mind the traditional tendency toward separation and fragmentation. This is the reality that had to be confronted equally by the Maurya and Gupta empires, by the Mughals and the British. It is a history of two thousand years of struggle between separatism and centralism.
We are witnessing now, at the end of the century, the resurrection of ethnic and psychic passions, beliefs, ideas, and realities that seemed to have been long buried. The return of religious passion and nationalist fervor hides an ambiguous meaning: Is it the return of ghosts and demons that reason had exorcised, or is it the revelation of profound truths and realities that had been ignored by our proud intellectual constructs?
Rāgas are soliloquies and meditations, passionate melodies that draw circles and triangles in a mental space, a geometry of sounds that can turn a room into a fountain, a spring, a pool. What I learned from music—besides the pleasure of walking through those galleries of echoes and gardens of transparent trees, where sounds think and thoughts dance—was something that I also found in Indian poetry and thought: the tension between wholeness and emptiness, the continual coming and going between the two.
Bhagavad-Gītā -- Arjuna sees Arjuna in combat and knows that he is and is not Arjuna; the true Arjuna is neither the combatant nor he who is watching the combat, but another, who has no name and who only is. In that same instant, the future vanishes and time dissolves: Arjuna becomes free of Arjuna. Who performs the act, and when? Everything happens in an eternal now, without antecedents or consequences, with no yesterday or tomorrow. Action without action is identical to liberation. The act executed by Arjuna: is it an act, or has it also vanished, along with the hero and his victims?
January 16, 2025
Aunque trata algunos temas interesantes sobre la India, me he sentido obligada a leer este libro para un examen por lo que no le puedo dar más puntuación. Resalto la frase: "la crítica sólo puede desplegarse en una sociedad que concibe a la libertad como un bien común de todos los ciudadanos".
April 9, 2025
Tornar a l’Índia serà la millor part de l’aventura!
February 11, 2019
This is now the third book by the author I have read, and not coincidentally the third that was translated by the same gentleman. In reading this book about a place I have not (yet) been, I am struck by how much this particular endeavor is a very Nathanish sort of book. Admittedly, there are many Nathanish sorts of books, but this particular book is an example of the sort of travel writings I engage in as an observant visitor of other countries and someone who is generally interested in the sort of people and situations I see around me. Even more specifically, this book is made up of the sorts of essays that serve as general and overarching comparisons between one's home country (in the case of the author, Mexico), the country that one is staying (in the author's case as an ambassador to India from Mexico) as well as countries that the author happens to be familiar with from other travels (like European countries and the United States). Thus this book has the point of view of an observant outsider of dubious political intelligence who writes both about his own life as well as about how India sheds light on the author's own experiences and background.
This particular book is about two hundred pages long and is divided into five parts and numerous smaller chapters, each of which is a semi-independent essay or treatise. The author begins with the antipodes of coming and going to India, as he describes it (I), discussing first his time in Bombay as an attache to the consulate there (1), his trip to Dehli soon afterward (2), and his return more than a decade later to Dehli as Mexico's ambassador to India (3). After that the author discusses the issue of religions, castes, and languages within India (II), with a discussion first of the relationship between Rama and Allah (4), then a discussion of India's characteristic view of the cosmic matrix contrasted with Christian and Western models (5), and the Babel of languages that India is made up of that has made its unity a difficult phenomenon (6). After this the author looks at India's project of nationhood (III), looking at its feasts and fasts (7), the singularity of Indian history when compared with other regions (8), Ghandi's paradoxical role of center and extreme within Indian thought (9), and the issues of nationalism, secularism, and democracy that India struggles with (10). After this the author moves on to a celebration of Indian religion (IV) with a loook at the Aspara and the Yakshi (11), chastity and longevity (12), the critique of liberation (13), and the issue of time (14), before closing with a farewell (V) and some acknowledgements.
The author is, as is often the case, limited in his work by his perspective. In some ways the author's perspective makes him a sympathetic viewer of India's culture and place in the world, such as his fondness for the paradoxes of Buddhism and Hinduism as well as the way in which India's native culture and religion have lacked the Reformation and Enlightenment that color European thinking. The author also cautions the negative effects of the Hindu nationalism that has become increasingly popular in India and which threatens India's ability to be peaceful with its own large and complex minorities, many of whom rightfully find Hindu nationalism a terrifying phenomenon. At times, though, the author's belief that statist (socialist) economies are necessary for poor countries to advance leaves the author unable to explain how it is that some countries are able to rise above others when it comes to providing prosperity and dignity to wide portions of the population, thus helping their governments and cultures achieve a degree of legitimacy among the general population.
This particular book is about two hundred pages long and is divided into five parts and numerous smaller chapters, each of which is a semi-independent essay or treatise. The author begins with the antipodes of coming and going to India, as he describes it (I), discussing first his time in Bombay as an attache to the consulate there (1), his trip to Dehli soon afterward (2), and his return more than a decade later to Dehli as Mexico's ambassador to India (3). After that the author discusses the issue of religions, castes, and languages within India (II), with a discussion first of the relationship between Rama and Allah (4), then a discussion of India's characteristic view of the cosmic matrix contrasted with Christian and Western models (5), and the Babel of languages that India is made up of that has made its unity a difficult phenomenon (6). After this the author looks at India's project of nationhood (III), looking at its feasts and fasts (7), the singularity of Indian history when compared with other regions (8), Ghandi's paradoxical role of center and extreme within Indian thought (9), and the issues of nationalism, secularism, and democracy that India struggles with (10). After this the author moves on to a celebration of Indian religion (IV) with a loook at the Aspara and the Yakshi (11), chastity and longevity (12), the critique of liberation (13), and the issue of time (14), before closing with a farewell (V) and some acknowledgements.
The author is, as is often the case, limited in his work by his perspective. In some ways the author's perspective makes him a sympathetic viewer of India's culture and place in the world, such as his fondness for the paradoxes of Buddhism and Hinduism as well as the way in which India's native culture and religion have lacked the Reformation and Enlightenment that color European thinking. The author also cautions the negative effects of the Hindu nationalism that has become increasingly popular in India and which threatens India's ability to be peaceful with its own large and complex minorities, many of whom rightfully find Hindu nationalism a terrifying phenomenon. At times, though, the author's belief that statist (socialist) economies are necessary for poor countries to advance leaves the author unable to explain how it is that some countries are able to rise above others when it comes to providing prosperity and dignity to wide portions of the population, thus helping their governments and cultures achieve a degree of legitimacy among the general population.
January 15, 2015
While living in Mexico, I personally noticed a lot of interesting similarities between Indian & Mexican cultures. When I found out Paz had written a book on India (the country I was born and grew up in), I was definitely very curious to see a Mexican's opinions and experiences of India. This book of course is so much more than Mexico vs India.
It's hard to explain India but I think Paz does a wonderful job of it, without the usual cliches that the Western world seems to love about India. Paz's discussion of India ranges from politics, to religion to history. It is obvious he has made a deep study of India and why it is the way it is. I enjoyed the lessons in history, especially in context of the rest of the world. I was intrigued by his writings on colonisation and how though Mexico and India were both colonised, the resulting nations have turned out quite differently.
Yes, it is euro centric in many ways. Yes, he gets some things confused. But overall, his poetic and lyrical style won me over. I hope to re-read this again one day in the original Spanish version.
It's hard to explain India but I think Paz does a wonderful job of it, without the usual cliches that the Western world seems to love about India. Paz's discussion of India ranges from politics, to religion to history. It is obvious he has made a deep study of India and why it is the way it is. I enjoyed the lessons in history, especially in context of the rest of the world. I was intrigued by his writings on colonisation and how though Mexico and India were both colonised, the resulting nations have turned out quite differently.
Yes, it is euro centric in many ways. Yes, he gets some things confused. But overall, his poetic and lyrical style won me over. I hope to re-read this again one day in the original Spanish version.
July 11, 2007
interesting book, though i didn't finish it (had to return it to the libes).
he gives his perspective as an ambassador from a former colony (mexico) to a much more recently liberated colony. learned a ton about india, both its history and what it was like back in the 50s and 60s. (i hope his info was accurate! i am always a bit suss about people commenting on cultures that are not their own, though of course, in this book, that is the point.)
he had a truly fascinating take on culture in general, and he had some things to say about people and their low tastes/anti-intellectualism that you would swear had been written in the U.S. during the height of dubya's popularity. worth reading just for that stuff, which is in the first 100 pages, if memory serves. such an eloquent rant!
but mostly, he's just using his poetic abilities to describe beautiful places (without glossing over the poverty, etc.) and what he encountered there.
he gives his perspective as an ambassador from a former colony (mexico) to a much more recently liberated colony. learned a ton about india, both its history and what it was like back in the 50s and 60s. (i hope his info was accurate! i am always a bit suss about people commenting on cultures that are not their own, though of course, in this book, that is the point.)
he had a truly fascinating take on culture in general, and he had some things to say about people and their low tastes/anti-intellectualism that you would swear had been written in the U.S. during the height of dubya's popularity. worth reading just for that stuff, which is in the first 100 pages, if memory serves. such an eloquent rant!
but mostly, he's just using his poetic abilities to describe beautiful places (without glossing over the poverty, etc.) and what he encountered there.
October 29, 2021
I was gifted this book by one of my friend from Mexico. I thought the author will account his experiences of living in India but that's not what the book is...I was disappointed. Rather, the author has touched so many topics on history, politics, religion, and mind you, these are sensitive topics and unless supported by strong evidence mean nothing. In this book, many statements related to politics of religion are controversial and one-sided. Moreover, the book lacks focus. The author has tried his best to balance talking about different religions and puts forth arguments to confront some of the text, yet, he never talks about faith. If you try to find logic in faith, you have to be more considerate. I liked the chapter where the author discusses time.
May 31, 2016
En mi opinión, y habiendo vivido en India por tres años ahora que lo termino, Octavio Paz intenta, y en muchas ocasiones lo logra, transmitir el cúmulo de experiencias, Historia, descubrimiento y pensamiento que conlleva este continente. El libro es como un gran paraguas que ayuda a contextualizar algunas de las características de este país que no entendemos cuando llegamos como viajeros ávidos de experiencia. Sólo me perdí cuando comienza a elaborar su comparación entre el concepto del tiempo en el hinduismo y en el cristianismo...
Por lo demás, recomendable si India está en tu lista de curiosidades.
Por lo demás, recomendable si India está en tu lista de curiosidades.
July 25, 2016
Often when we read books about India or introductory guides, the author is usually European, American or South Asian. Originally written in Spanish, In Light of India, is one of the few Latin American introductions to India. Written by Octavio Paz, Mexico's second ambassador to India, the book offers a unique account of the largest "country" in the subcontinent through a series of essays commenting on religion, caste, history, poetry and philosophy. Paz's insight on all things Indian provide an outlook missing from many foreign and local analyses. If I had a friend who wanted to be introduced to India and the Indian state of mind, this would be the first book I would recommend.
April 9, 2019
Si bien ahora uno puede saber más de pensamiento de la India que lo que ofrece este compendio hecho por Paz, lo cierto es que el esfuerzo realizado para entrelazar su experiencia vital junto con una prosa sencilla para mostrar un universo poco conocido para el mexicano es destacable.
De hecho, la lectura fue sencilla y es un ensayo de cierto tamaño. Es digno de subrayar que Paz hace remembranza de pensadores que ahora se han vuelto más famosos posteriormente, como Ramón Pannikar. Este libro de Paz resulta no sólo un texto delicioso sino un documento histórico por mostrarnos cómo vio un mexicano a la India en los años de Nehru y de Indira Gandhi.
De hecho, la lectura fue sencilla y es un ensayo de cierto tamaño. Es digno de subrayar que Paz hace remembranza de pensadores que ahora se han vuelto más famosos posteriormente, como Ramón Pannikar. Este libro de Paz resulta no sólo un texto delicioso sino un documento histórico por mostrarnos cómo vio un mexicano a la India en los años de Nehru y de Indira Gandhi.
August 28, 2013
This book taught me a lot about Indian art and history. Although this is a memoir, I found the author to be well educated in Indian history, philosophy and music. There were a lot of things that I didn't know about the history(co-mingling of religion, poetry etc) that I discovered here. Most of the history is focused up on North India and Pakistan. He also makes a lot of comparison with Indian and Mexican culture--which, I thought was interesting.I would recommend this to anyone interested in Indian history, who admires good writing.
June 7, 2007
Octavio Paz lived in India on two separate occassions - representing the Govt of Mexico - and was an India lover. A lover and keen observer of its history, poetry, religion, food, etc - Paz' book is a collection of essays on India. Beautiful book - my favorite is the one where he compares and contrasts Indian food and Mexican food.
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