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The Continent of Circe
The Heart Of India,the result of the author's life time effort to understand the nature of things Indian,describes the human situation in India after Independance.The author resorts to the historical method,and surprisingly encounters not staticity,but a continuing,dynamic,and even explosive process,within which history and geography have worked to create dissimilar communities and endless conflicts.In the process of research he works exhaustively with Indian ethnic communities.The account has the kaleidoscope quality of a motion picture,linking all historic events from Aryan migration upto Nehru's death in a coherent,though shifting perspective,which also reveals that the grip of established tradition on all communities has not relaxed.Yet the highlight of this book is undoubtedly the author's imaginative interpretation of the Hindu personality based on original sources.Chaudhuri's language is forceful and expressive,and his arguments are well defined and lucid.The Heart Of India is without doubt,one of this controversial author's most compelling and authoritative work - a landmark in Indian literary histroy. The book was originally published as "The Continent of Circe"..
- GenresIndiaNonfictionHistory
320 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1965
About the author
Nirad C. Chaudhuri
31 books83 followersNirad C. Chaudhuri (Bangla: নীরদ চন্দ্র চৌধুরী Nirod Chôndro Choudhuri) was a Bengali−English writer and cultural commentator. He was born in 1897 in Kishoreganj, which today is part of Bangladesh but at that time was part of Bengal, a region of British India.
He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, in 1975 for his biography on Max Müller called Scholar Extraordinary, by the Sahitya Akademi, India's national academy of letters. In 1992, he was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom with the title of Commander of Order of the British Empire (CBE). His 1965 work The Continent of Circe earned him the Duff Cooper Memorial Award, becoming the first and only Indian to be selected for the prize.
In 1951 he published his most famous book, Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, a penetrating and challenging analysis of Indian history, culture and British rule. The controversial dedication to the memory of the British Empire caused a furore at the time but the book is now considered a classic work of Indian literature. He was awarded the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize for The Continent of Circe (1965), was made CBE in 1992 and received the Hon.D.Litt from the University of Oxford; the University of Viswa Bharati also awarded him Deshikottama, its highest honorary degree.
A passionate admirer of western culture, he first visited England in 1955, a visit which inspired his book Passage to England. He decided to make his home in Oxford in 1970 when he was over seventy. He was a familiar and arresting sight out and about in Oxford, a diminutive figure, always impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit, although he wore Indian attire at home. He wrote his last book Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse only a year before his death at the age of nearly 102.
He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, in 1975 for his biography on Max Müller called Scholar Extraordinary, by the Sahitya Akademi, India's national academy of letters. In 1992, he was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom with the title of Commander of Order of the British Empire (CBE). His 1965 work The Continent of Circe earned him the Duff Cooper Memorial Award, becoming the first and only Indian to be selected for the prize.
In 1951 he published his most famous book, Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, a penetrating and challenging analysis of Indian history, culture and British rule. The controversial dedication to the memory of the British Empire caused a furore at the time but the book is now considered a classic work of Indian literature. He was awarded the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize for The Continent of Circe (1965), was made CBE in 1992 and received the Hon.D.Litt from the University of Oxford; the University of Viswa Bharati also awarded him Deshikottama, its highest honorary degree.
A passionate admirer of western culture, he first visited England in 1955, a visit which inspired his book Passage to England. He decided to make his home in Oxford in 1970 when he was over seventy. He was a familiar and arresting sight out and about in Oxford, a diminutive figure, always impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit, although he wore Indian attire at home. He wrote his last book Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse only a year before his death at the age of nearly 102.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 9, 2019
Nirad C Chaudhari, who lived most of his later life in Britain and died there a few years ago just a little short of hundred, has presented in this book his deep understanding of the Indian culture and Hinduism.
He repeatedly maintains that he technically is a Shudra: the lowest caste among the Hindus, who are not touched by Brahmans. His criticism of the Independence heroes of India and the writer Rabinrda Nath Tagore is plausible and a little intemperate, if one is to consider it in the present context, when most of the people he criticized has been deified to the extent that they are considered beyond any scrutiny.
Also is remarkable in this book his recognition of the Hindu militarism and its going unacknowledged by the conquerors who ruled India for centuries after vanquishing it. It is presented as something different than the militarism of other cultures and is often directed inwards; self-wounding, in other words. It remains dormant to appear sporadically and surprisingly in the Indian history. The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindu zealot is an example of it. Nirad's analysis in this regard is important as he was hired as a military expert by the colonial British government during the second world war.
Nirad Chaudhri has intended in this book to put ahead the debate that the Aryans of India were migrants from the West and became brown by the 'sun and wind' of the continent over the centuries.
Their inability to accept the black colour as equal; and their love and appreciation of rivers and other traits Nirad had presented as a proof to this end. The waters of a holy river lapping the ample breasts of a half-naked Hindu woman, while she is chest deep in it to offer prayer to the deities, while the naked Naga Sadhus pass through a holy river bank nearby, with their genitals pierced and chained to suggest their celebate lives and the detachment from the worldly matters, is a scene depicted in the book. To explain the times, people and attitudes the writer knew.
He has hinted at the unavailability of Hindu women for blacks, unlike the European or American women, as a proof of the loathing the black color receives from Hindu higher caste. He maintains that Hindus are incapable of seeing any beauty in black colored people. This all may look a needless point, unsuitable for this remarkable book, that otherwise has an acuity rarely seen in the work of recent authors from the continent, and the writer's deep study of the Hindu religious books which the author refers to frequently in this book, and his first hand knowledge of the Sanskrit language, which a few present scholar could claim of. Nirad was not called `Brown-sahib' for nothing.
Then he focuses on the matter of cow slaughter and debates that eating cow meat is nowhere prohibited in Hindu religious books. And he argues that Indian cows are more beautiful than the cows anywhere else. Nirad maintains that it is due to the color only that the buffalo milk is unacceptable to higher caste Hindus, though it is more nutritious than the cow milk. Also the buffalo is slaughtered in the religious ceremonies of Hindus.
Nirad also dwells on the issue of Hindu sexuality, sounding a little prudish, when he rejects the ancient erotic art carved on the caves in South India, which has largely remained Hindu in spite of the foreign conquests, and the literature like Kamasutra, as of little value and not the genuine representative of Hindu Sexuality. He argues that it is lecherous in nature and is meant to stimulate or satisfy the physically incapable or mentally perverted, men or women. He also disapproves of the Western curiosity and appreciation of the same. He states that the Hindu way of sex is not Gandhian non-violent type. Then he goes on to express his dismay when he noticed among an old married couple in his childhood, the amount of verbal abuse, sallies and innuendos going on, and the man mostly receiving them. Though they looked perfectly happy to the other people.
He maintains that there is much self-wounding and violence taking place among a married Hindu couple than ever noticed or reported, by the scholars - indigenous or foreign. The latter actually have no means to understand the cultural nuances of Hindu society, Nirad often asserts.
He also reports the continuous emotional black-mail a Hindu man, particularly a jobless one, suffers for the sex he receives from his wife. The thought of the sex he would be receiving from his wife in the night keeps him going through all the harshness he is subjected to, by his wife or the larger world, for his joblessness or other matters, keeps him going on, as per Nirad Chaudhary. The couple hating each other to the utmost go to bed and fulfill their carnal desire in the dark, and detest each other for it and everything else the next day, to became again aroused by the desire by the evening; never coming out of the fatigue of copulation really. Gratifying oneself by courtesans is what most people could not afford and having extra marital relations always entails a risk of another marriage, and a lot of family quarrel and sufferings, more than anything else.
But he also mentions the Hindu capacity to ignore the inevitable adultery in some cases. These observations are of a time Nirad lived in India in the pre and post independence period mostly. They may look relevant or not in today's context, when the Hindu sexuality too, like many other things, has undergone a remarkable shift.
Nirad substantiates most of his arguments in this regard by quoting from saskrit and French or Latin literature, displaying his eclectic source of knowledge, to lend credence to the same. Defying his tyrannical observations would take a longer apprenticeship with an intellectual career and greater insight than his, though the information are more readily available nowadays. Being a low caste person, his scholarship is more significant than most of the higher caste Hindus of any renown.
This book also has dealt with the attitudes of English rulers before Indian independence and shows how much they were worried about the mob overwhelming them and a possible sabotage. It was an uneasy relationship well explored by Nirad.
And at times the arguments may appear without any sound proofs, which the author forwards with emotions, having ran out of the quotes in different languages; and it seems the author is never ready to concede on anything he is arguing about. But it was a book written more then fifty years back. So such flaws could be ignored. Considering the fact that even today this is how matters are debated in the Indian Continent: more with emotions than reasons.
For the people interested in the history of the Indian sub-continent, which is not much reported nowadays, or is tempered with, even in the academic papers, this book is a delightful read. If one can ignore the singular flaw of the book: Of presenting the Aryans or Indians as the European Migrant.
He repeatedly maintains that he technically is a Shudra: the lowest caste among the Hindus, who are not touched by Brahmans. His criticism of the Independence heroes of India and the writer Rabinrda Nath Tagore is plausible and a little intemperate, if one is to consider it in the present context, when most of the people he criticized has been deified to the extent that they are considered beyond any scrutiny.
Also is remarkable in this book his recognition of the Hindu militarism and its going unacknowledged by the conquerors who ruled India for centuries after vanquishing it. It is presented as something different than the militarism of other cultures and is often directed inwards; self-wounding, in other words. It remains dormant to appear sporadically and surprisingly in the Indian history. The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindu zealot is an example of it. Nirad's analysis in this regard is important as he was hired as a military expert by the colonial British government during the second world war.
Nirad Chaudhri has intended in this book to put ahead the debate that the Aryans of India were migrants from the West and became brown by the 'sun and wind' of the continent over the centuries.
Their inability to accept the black colour as equal; and their love and appreciation of rivers and other traits Nirad had presented as a proof to this end. The waters of a holy river lapping the ample breasts of a half-naked Hindu woman, while she is chest deep in it to offer prayer to the deities, while the naked Naga Sadhus pass through a holy river bank nearby, with their genitals pierced and chained to suggest their celebate lives and the detachment from the worldly matters, is a scene depicted in the book. To explain the times, people and attitudes the writer knew.
He has hinted at the unavailability of Hindu women for blacks, unlike the European or American women, as a proof of the loathing the black color receives from Hindu higher caste. He maintains that Hindus are incapable of seeing any beauty in black colored people. This all may look a needless point, unsuitable for this remarkable book, that otherwise has an acuity rarely seen in the work of recent authors from the continent, and the writer's deep study of the Hindu religious books which the author refers to frequently in this book, and his first hand knowledge of the Sanskrit language, which a few present scholar could claim of. Nirad was not called `Brown-sahib' for nothing.
Then he focuses on the matter of cow slaughter and debates that eating cow meat is nowhere prohibited in Hindu religious books. And he argues that Indian cows are more beautiful than the cows anywhere else. Nirad maintains that it is due to the color only that the buffalo milk is unacceptable to higher caste Hindus, though it is more nutritious than the cow milk. Also the buffalo is slaughtered in the religious ceremonies of Hindus.
Nirad also dwells on the issue of Hindu sexuality, sounding a little prudish, when he rejects the ancient erotic art carved on the caves in South India, which has largely remained Hindu in spite of the foreign conquests, and the literature like Kamasutra, as of little value and not the genuine representative of Hindu Sexuality. He argues that it is lecherous in nature and is meant to stimulate or satisfy the physically incapable or mentally perverted, men or women. He also disapproves of the Western curiosity and appreciation of the same. He states that the Hindu way of sex is not Gandhian non-violent type. Then he goes on to express his dismay when he noticed among an old married couple in his childhood, the amount of verbal abuse, sallies and innuendos going on, and the man mostly receiving them. Though they looked perfectly happy to the other people.
He maintains that there is much self-wounding and violence taking place among a married Hindu couple than ever noticed or reported, by the scholars - indigenous or foreign. The latter actually have no means to understand the cultural nuances of Hindu society, Nirad often asserts.
He also reports the continuous emotional black-mail a Hindu man, particularly a jobless one, suffers for the sex he receives from his wife. The thought of the sex he would be receiving from his wife in the night keeps him going through all the harshness he is subjected to, by his wife or the larger world, for his joblessness or other matters, keeps him going on, as per Nirad Chaudhary. The couple hating each other to the utmost go to bed and fulfill their carnal desire in the dark, and detest each other for it and everything else the next day, to became again aroused by the desire by the evening; never coming out of the fatigue of copulation really. Gratifying oneself by courtesans is what most people could not afford and having extra marital relations always entails a risk of another marriage, and a lot of family quarrel and sufferings, more than anything else.
But he also mentions the Hindu capacity to ignore the inevitable adultery in some cases. These observations are of a time Nirad lived in India in the pre and post independence period mostly. They may look relevant or not in today's context, when the Hindu sexuality too, like many other things, has undergone a remarkable shift.
Nirad substantiates most of his arguments in this regard by quoting from saskrit and French or Latin literature, displaying his eclectic source of knowledge, to lend credence to the same. Defying his tyrannical observations would take a longer apprenticeship with an intellectual career and greater insight than his, though the information are more readily available nowadays. Being a low caste person, his scholarship is more significant than most of the higher caste Hindus of any renown.
This book also has dealt with the attitudes of English rulers before Indian independence and shows how much they were worried about the mob overwhelming them and a possible sabotage. It was an uneasy relationship well explored by Nirad.
And at times the arguments may appear without any sound proofs, which the author forwards with emotions, having ran out of the quotes in different languages; and it seems the author is never ready to concede on anything he is arguing about. But it was a book written more then fifty years back. So such flaws could be ignored. Considering the fact that even today this is how matters are debated in the Indian Continent: more with emotions than reasons.
For the people interested in the history of the Indian sub-continent, which is not much reported nowadays, or is tempered with, even in the academic papers, this book is a delightful read. If one can ignore the singular flaw of the book: Of presenting the Aryans or Indians as the European Migrant.
December 24, 2020
Like many I have never been to India and, sadly, my only direct experience is with telephone scammers. This book, very much of its time 15 years after independence, is an attempt to explain India to the West. Only a dispassionate Indian can tell how well the portrait has stood the test of time.
The author is a Hindu and tries to explain the mixture of apparent irrationality that Westerners see in Hindus, their free but violent attitude to sex, favouritism to the fair, acedia and superstition. His approach is unfortunately tied, in part, to an erroneous belief Aryans descended from European nomads and Hindu practices reflect an attempt by Europeans to come to terms with the heat and landscape of India.
He is no fan of the Anglo-British ruling clique (by which he means Indians trained in the West or whose first language is English) whom he sees as detached from the real life of India and a pale shadow of both continents.
Muslims in India are distinct from Hindus and find they are now outside an unfortunate homeland, unsure of their place. The character of Christian Indians fails to replicate the single-minded heroism of early Christian converts in the Roman Empire.
A number of these comments reflect what, to me, are stereotypical views of India and Indians. That's not to say they are wrong but indicate the relation of India and the West is complicated and much effort is needed to understand each other in order to find productive ways forward together.
The author is a Hindu and tries to explain the mixture of apparent irrationality that Westerners see in Hindus, their free but violent attitude to sex, favouritism to the fair, acedia and superstition. His approach is unfortunately tied, in part, to an erroneous belief Aryans descended from European nomads and Hindu practices reflect an attempt by Europeans to come to terms with the heat and landscape of India.
He is no fan of the Anglo-British ruling clique (by which he means Indians trained in the West or whose first language is English) whom he sees as detached from the real life of India and a pale shadow of both continents.
Muslims in India are distinct from Hindus and find they are now outside an unfortunate homeland, unsure of their place. The character of Christian Indians fails to replicate the single-minded heroism of early Christian converts in the Roman Empire.
A number of these comments reflect what, to me, are stereotypical views of India and Indians. That's not to say they are wrong but indicate the relation of India and the West is complicated and much effort is needed to understand each other in order to find productive ways forward together.
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March 1, 2019 A compellingly idiosyncratic if viciously negative history of the Indian sub-continent. Chaudhuri is very, very smart, and completely unrestrained by conventional wisdom or ethnic loyalty; some of this is so unhesitatingly mean-spirited, however – for instance his contention that Hinduism is the result of the immigrant Aryan’s revulsion at India’s climate and general squalor – as to make for cringy reading. Interesting, at least. It made really curious as to what his reputation is in academic circles, not that he would have given a withered fig as to the matter.
August 18, 2017
An erudite work of great importance and interest to all Hindus and Indophiles alike. A clever man presents his point of view of Indian history, Aryan growth in India and Hindu belief.
September 11, 2020
The wit and honesty of Nirad is a continent apart from Circe's. A brilliant essay.
August 26, 2018
As an Indian who has read this book, I think that Nirad Chaudhury is more accurate as a Sociologist and Anthropologist than as a Historian. One major theme of his book- of the Indian Aryans being from Eastern Europe/South West Russia- has been greatly weakened by genetic studies in recent times. However, in other places, he is surprisingly correct, insightful, candid and original.
On the whole, one should not be taking everything he says at face value- however, full marks must be given to him for being thought provoking or even just provoking- in other words, quite entertaining! Also, the prose would enrich your English language, apart from Latin, French and Sanskrit!
On the whole, one should not be taking everything he says at face value- however, full marks must be given to him for being thought provoking or even just provoking- in other words, quite entertaining! Also, the prose would enrich your English language, apart from Latin, French and Sanskrit!
November 9, 2009
Absolutely the best Himalayan-level explanation of Indian culture by the fellow who wrote the much better known and glorious books Memoir of an Unknown Indian and Thy Hand, Great Anarch!
August 7, 2011
This book deals with a subject matter that continues to remain controversial in present day. Speaking frankly about South Asian historical topics such as race, sexuality, and modern society, Chaudhuri presents a complex and thought provoking picture of the subcontinent. While certainly some of his points were in my opinion anachronistic, a significant amount of his arguments were not only convincing.They also effectively challenged mainstream historical perspectives heavily shaped by particular political leanings and unsubstantiated presumptions .
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July 22, 2013relax
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews