No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
Hinduism permeates A Passage To India. While recognizing this fact, none of the critics have so far displayed an understanding of Hinduism which is adequate for the analysis of this novel. The type of Hinduism which has been popularized in the West, that of Vedantic philosophy, has been stressed in their studies.1 Further pursuit of this critical task will show unmistakably that Hinduism of an entirely different kind pervades the novel.
1 A mistake even McConkey, James has made, although he has so far made the best analysis of this problem in his The Novels of E. M. Forster (New York, 1957)Google Scholar.
2 All such references are to the 1924 Harcourt, Brace and Company edition of A Passage To India.
3 Forster, E. M., The Hill of Devi (London, 1953), p. 192Google Scholar.
4 Wilson, Agnes, “A Conversation With E. M. Forster,” Encounter, IX (November 1957), p. 54Google Scholar.
5 Zimmer, Heinrich, Philisophies of India, ed. by Campbell, Joseph, (New York, 1951), p. 269Google Scholar.
6 Keith, A. B., “Om,” The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. by Hastings, James, 1955, IX, p. 492Google Scholar.
7 While Forster once called himself a skeptic, he has never called himself a rationalist or a materialist. Notice how he points to certain of Fielding's limitations in understanding, most obviously when he is contrasted with his wife.
8 See Tindall's, William chapter on Symbolism, “The Forest of Symbols,” in Forces in Modern British Fiction (New York, 1947)Google Scholar. Mr. Tindall feels that A Passage To India is one of the great novels of the symbolist movement.
9 See the reference to “the tradition of the shrine.” (288) Tukaram himself is in the less tempestuous and sensual line of Maratha poet-saints. It is no accident that in this particular festival Krishna's favorite mistress becomes his favorite wife.
10 Ranade, Ramchandra, Pathway To God In Marathi Literature (Calcutta, 1961), p. 250Google Scholar.
11 Wilde, Alan, Art and Order; A Study of E. M. Forster (New York, 1964), p. 151Google Scholar.
12 The Hill of Devi, p. 175, helps by describing Godbole's condition. Godbole was unable to love the stone. But perhaps this is only indicative of the fact that he is a dualist. The stone does not reflect God in the way that the stone in the cave seems to reflect Brahman.
13 Zimmer, Philosophies, p. 175.
14 The Hindus can incorporate such playful activity because they believe one should be unconcerned about the results of an action, and that even Krishna was not concerned about the purposefulness of his actions when a child. Eliot, Charles, Hinduism and Buddhism (New York, 1921), II, 183Google Scholar.
15 Forster, E. M., Howard's End (New York, 1959), p. 161Google Scholar.
16 Zimmer, Heinrich, Myths and Symbols In Indian Art and Literature, ed. by Campbell, Joseph (New York, 1946), pp. 40–41Google Scholar.
17 To see, however, that such Hindu ritual is not as formless as Forster suggests, see Bhattacharyya, Sivaprased, “Religious Practices of the Hindus,” in The Religion of the Hindus, ed. by Morgan, Kenneth (New York, 1953), pp. 154–205Google Scholar.
18 Forster, E. M., Two Cheers for Democracy (New York, 1951), p. 91Google Scholar.
19 Ibid., p. 90.
20 Howard's End, pp. 33–34.
21 Zimmer, Myths, pp. 87–88.
22 It is not likely that the theory involving the operation of the Hindu “trinity” in the novel is valid. Belief in the trinity of Vishnu, Siva and Brahma has never been popular in India; obviously it is not one of the beliefs of the sect who follow Vishnu, the Hindus whose presence is felt in this novel, where there is a supreme God and innumerable lesser ones, not three equal and supreme gods. Even if such a belief were prevalent in India and Forster had encountered it there, there is no reference to Brahma in the novel and the only specific reference to Siva does so in order to point out the “obscenities” of one of the god's temples.
23 Forster, Two Cheers, pp. 67–68.
24 The monism of “Mr. Andrews” ended this story altogether by the eradication of the individuality of the two chief characters.
25 Forster seems to have felt that the bhakta could feel love for God but be disinterested in other men. The Bhagavad-Gita, XII, pp. 16–17, declares: “Unconcerned, pure, capable,/Disinterested, free from perturbation,/Abandoning all undertakings,/Who is devoted to Me, is dear to Me./Who neither delights nor loathes,/Neither grieves nor craves,/Renouncing good and evil (objects),/Who is full of devotion, he is dear to Me.” (Edgerton translation) Zaehner, Robert in his excellent book, Hinduism (London, 1962)Google Scholar selects a passage from the Mahabartha to illustrate this. The story tells how Yudhisthira could not attain salvation because he refused to renounce the dog which loyally followed him, although he had already given up everything else.
26 An article which discusses such questions in more detail is Nierenberg's, Edwin article “The Withered Priestess,” Modern Language Quarterly, XXV (June, 1964), pp. 198–204Google Scholar, which interprets her character unfavorably.
27 P. N. Furbank and F. J. H. Haskell. Interview with Forster, E. M., Writers at Work, ed. by Cowley, Malcolm (New York, 1959)Google Scholar.
28 Wilson, p. 54.
29 There also seems to be a certain amount of Western religious symbolism. The serpent image is used for describing what happens to Mrs. Moore in the cave. (147–48) Because of the serpent-messiah antithesis this image is used in the West as a representation of evil. Snake symbolism is used differently in the Orient. Vishnu is often represented as a great snake. The Serpent Prince is Buddha's ally. Here it stands for a condition which is more beneficial, for intimacy with the Earth.
30 Besah, Radhagovinda, “The Hindu Concept of the Natural World,” The Religion of the Hindus, ed. by Morgan, Kenneth (New York, 1953), p. 115Google Scholar.
31 Zimmer, Myths, pp. 34–5, 202.
32 I am indebted to Mr. Nierenberg's article, p. 32, for pointing out that the circlet represents Mrs. Moore.
33 To see the water myths explained in more detail, read section one, chapters one through three, and section three, chapter seven in Heinrich Zimmer's Myths and Symbols In Indian Art and Civilization. Mr. McConkey believes he has found another symbol in the stone image, pp. 145–47.