Journeys Across India

Durgacharan Rakshit (1854-1938) was a scholar and a business owner. In the late 1800s and early 1900s | he set out on an unprecedented set of travels that took him to nearly all corners of India. Travelling by foot | boat | train | carriage and more | he traversed the length and breadth of the country—quite literally. In this detailed journal written over several years | Rakshit recounts seeing the temples of Orissa and the small towns of Assam; he describes the mountainous heights of Kashmir | the beauty of the Golden Temple in Amritsar | the magnificent Jain temples near Mount Abu | and the transcendent Taj Mahal. In the south | he travels through Andhra | Karnataka | Kerala | and Tamil Nadu | visiting cities | temples and towns | describing in detail what were for him unknown customs and ways of living. Everywhere | Durgacharan Rakshit turns his enquiring eye on the way men and women look | dress | and their religious and traditional beliefs. From the elaborate rituals of major temples | to the price of bananas and betel nuts | nothing escapes his meticulous notice. Along the way he meets poets | administrators | wandering sadhus | businessmen | householders and more—all of which he records in his journal. Journeys Across India | first published in Bengali as Bharat Pradakshin in 1903— and still in print—is an invaluable and exhaustive portrait of India and Indian society rooted in history | and will be of immense interest to both scholars and the lay reader.