India

Fülszöveg

India is a country that is particularly difficult to understand. Westerners have grown up in a world totally different from that of India, and their concepts are inadequate for a comprehension of this country and its people. One realizes this the moment one crosses from the Islamic cultural sphere into that of Hinduism; the boundary between what is rational and what is irrational shifts at once. A good deal of what Westerners assign to the metaphysical sphere is absolute reality to the Indián. Europeans know the difficulties an American has in - as we like to put it - understanding the Europeans. Above all, he lacks a sense of historical depth as his own history only starts about 1600. An Indián probably reacts similarly to the European, considering that his own history reaches back a great deal further. The spiritual stream which has run through India for thousands of years, down to the present day, is greater and more homogeneous than that of the West. It should not be overlooked... Tovább

Fülszöveg

India is a country that is particularly difficult to understand. Westerners have grown up in a world totally different from that of India, and their concepts are inadequate for a comprehension of this country and its people. One realizes this the moment one crosses from the Islamic cultural sphere into that of Hinduism; the boundary between what is rational and what is irrational shifts at once. A good deal of what Westerners assign to the metaphysical sphere is absolute reality to the Indián. Europeans know the difficulties an American has in - as we like to put it - understanding the Europeans. Above all, he lacks a sense of historical depth as his own history only starts about 1600. An Indián probably reacts similarly to the European, considering that his own history reaches back a great deal further. The spiritual stream which has run through India for thousands of years, down to the present day, is greater and more homogeneous than that of the West. It should not be overlooked that in the case of India one is dealing with a continent of the size of Europe and with about one-seventh of all mankind. Over 500 millión people here are conducting an often hopeless-seeming struggle against the forces of nature, armed only with a technologically under-developed agriculture. India, however, wants more than just survival: since the Second World War she has tried to become a nation by her own strength, to raise her standard of living and to play on the international political stage a role appropriate to her self-assurance. Frequently, when one compares the Indián Government's plan target with the statistically recorded achievements the situation must appear hopeless; but when one goes out into the villages and at every step feels how his traditionally-conditioned rigour seems to be gradually losing its hold one's impression is different. These were the thoughts which guided the shaping of this illustrated volume on India. Professor R.L. Singh of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi (Benares), and many of his co-workers and former disciples examine, from their own point of view, all those questions in which man stands at the centre. The captions to the plates, India's physical geography and her assessment in a global view are the work of Professor H. Boesch, University of Zürich, and his co-workers. This division of tasks and the geographical view from which all chapters are written lend this illustrated book its special character. The photographer, W. Imber, supplied his pictorial material quite independently of the texts. If nevertheless the result is a unified whole then this is due to the fact that all those involved have tried, with the means of comprehension and expression at their disposal, to present a true picture of India. Vissza