The Meaning of India: Essays

First published in 1996 when he was eighty-eight years old this selection of nearly six decades of Raja Rao's non-fiction is an audacious contemplation on the deeper significance of India. A combination of fables journeys discussions and meditations The Meaning of India advances the view that India is not just a geographical entity or even a civilization-state. India is above all a metaphysic a way of being and regarding the self and the world.Drawing on a wide range of sources-including the Vedas the Upanishads the Ramayana the Mahabharata the Gita the Buddha Sankara Bhartrihari Kalidasa Dostoevsky Valéry Rilke Mann and Mallarmé-as also meetings with Gandhi Nehru Forster and Malraux Rao teases out the implications of Advaita or non-dualism which he regards as India's unique contribution to the world. Review [Raja Rao's] essays are esoteric light insightful and brilliant. He writes with equal facility about the Vedas and the Gita as about Thomas Mann and Rainer Maria Rilke...It's instructive to revisit his idea of India at this juncture when the democratic and socialist fabric of the nation is under stress. -- Mint LoungeRaja Rao's books were constantly in search of the idea of India. So when Prof Paranjape reintroduced Raja Rao's 1996 bookThe Meaning of India with his own scholarly "Introduction" it was bound to get attention especially at a time when there's a renewed interest in the idea of India. -- The Daily GuardianGiven that the world is currently undergoing great changes the republication ofThe Meaning of India is especially timely. -- R. Srinivasan in an interview with The Indian Express About the Author Raja Rao a path-breaker of Indian writing in English was born in Hassan Mysore. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.