On the paths of enlightenment

"With the publication of 'On the Language and Wisdom of India' by Friedrich Schlegel in 1808 there emerged in the West a new and increased curiosity for India and its extraordinary civilization. Starting out from the reflections regarding Hinduism and Buddhism by Schopenhauer, in turn followed in the first decades of the 20th century by the literary works fo Hermann Hesse and the anthropological analyses by Carl Gustav Jung, with its thousand-years-old traditions and its spirituality India seduced a multitude of western intellectuals and artists who in this country identified one of the most important cradles of human civilization. During the last two centuries this gave rise to the creation of that myth of India which captured the imagination of the international young generations of the 1960s and 1970s. This volume retraces the history of this Indian fascination on the part of the western world by way of an extensive iconographic compilation and numerous contributions by various authors who examine the manifold spheres in which this fascination expressed itself in ranging from art to literature, music, religion, the history of customs and psychology. The result is a very singular itinerary covering the last two centuries of western culture in which among the many others involved we can find Schopenhauer, Kipling, Salgari, Redon, Gustave Moreau, Mata Hari, Kirchner, Hesse, Jung, Cartier-Bresson, Le Corbusier, Ginsberg, Pasolini, Sottsass, The Beatles, Rauschenberg, Luigi Ontani and Francesco Clemente."