THE HINDU PHILOSOPHY SCARCELY less influential than Plato upon Emerson's mental development were the poetry and philosophy of the Orient. The great works of India take precedence in importance over those of China and Persia. We will therefore consider first the Hindu philosophy. Emerson's acquaintance with the poetry of India began very early. A letter from Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson says: "I think that I remember dimly that even while in college his letters show that he had at least read extracts from them [the East Indian scriptures], probably in some Englishman's account of India." He had just turned his nineteenth birthday when he copied into his Journal the following lines from Sir William Jones's translation of verses on "Narayena," or Vishnu : "... Of dew-spangled leaves and blossoms bright Hence! vanish from my sight, Delusive pictures! unsubstantial shews! Suns hence derive their force, But suns and fading worlds I view no more, 2 This extract suggests comparison with Emerson's own exquisite poem, called "Pan." A printed note. in the collected Works shows that this interest persisted into Emerson's manhood. "Some notes in his journals at about the time of his parting with his church [1832] show that he already was interested in the idealism of the Mahabharata, but probably only from extracts which he read in De Gerando's 'Histoire comparée des systèmes de philosophie.'" By 1840 he was praising the Vedas in a letter to a friend as the "bible of the tropics which I find I come back upon every three or four years," and which "contains every religious sentiment, all the grand ethics which visit in turn each noble and poetic mind."3 Between 1842 and 1844 he had published in The Dial extracts from the Vishnu Sarma and The Laws of Manu, besides examples of Chinese and Persian religious lore. In June, 1843, he wrote to Miss Elizabeth Hoar: "The only other event is the arrival in Concord 1 Journals, vol. I, p. 157. 2 VIII, 413. 3 IV, 314. Quoted from "Letters of Emerson to a Friend," edited by Charles Eliot Norton. Boston, 1899, p. 27. I of the Bhagavat Gita, the much renowned book of Buddhism, extracts from which I have often admired, but never before held the book in my hands." In a lecture given at Tufts College Mr. Charles Malloy once told that Emerson lent him the Bhagavat Gîta for a month, and that on reading the book he found in it the whole of Emerson's philosophy. The fact is that the central doctrine of the Hindu philosophy — the oneness of all things with the supreme Spirit-struck an answering chord in Emerson's breast. It is idle to speculate just how far his original tendency to find God everywhere was supported or strengthened by the frequent iteration in the Hindu scriptures of the eternal reality under the mask of illusion. Certain it is that this doctrine always found Emerson in a receptive mood. His most widely known expression of this view is probably the oft-cited poem, "Brahma": If the red slayer think he slays Or if the slain think he is slain, Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; 'Quoted in Dr. Emerson's letter, but I think it is to be found elsewhere. |