Years before he became a mythology expert and household name, Joseph Campbell journeyed to India. He was nearly 50, at a career crossroads, and after 10 years studying Indian art and philosophy he was finally going to India seeking the transcendent (Brahman), the mysteries of India. Instead he found the stark realities of baksheesh culture. His journal of those six months is the closest Campbell ever came to an autobiography. It's a diary of his adventures, insights, and ponderings; it's a window into the India of 1954 and the Joseph Campbell of 1954--both are intriguing places to visit.


From Publishers Weekly
Campbell argued that each religion's myths were simply different versions of one archetypal myth residing in the collective unconscious of humankind. This collection of journals shows how he arrived at his conclusions. In the fall of 1954, when he was 50, Campbell traveled to India in hopes of experiencing firsthand all the elements of Indian religious practice that he had been studying for a decade. From the beginning, he struggles with ambivalence: "when you look at India from the outside it is a squalid mess and a haven of fakers; but when you look at it from the inside... it is an epiphany of the spirit." These journals chronicle Campbell's meetings with holy men, his management of his wife Jean's dance tour through the country, and his meeting with Nehru. The climax of his visit is his meeting with Sri Krishna Menon in Trivandrum. The guru confirms Campbell's understanding of the Indian scriptures that the goal of the Self is to become one with the Universal. In these journals, Campbell also lays out an ambitious research plan for a project in comparative mythology that would eventually become his four-volume The Masks of God. Although sometimes arrogant and condescending, Campbell interrogates his own prejudices, dismantles them and builds the foundations of what has become an influential way of thinking about the world's religions.15)Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
After ten years of intensive study of Indian art and philosophy, Joseph Campbell, at 50, finally embarked on a journey to India. Searching for the transcendent (Brahman), he found instead stark realities: growing nationalism, religious rivalry, poverty, and a prevalent culture of what he called "baksheesh," or alms. This journal chronicles the disillusionment and revelation that would change the course of Campbell’s life and study, and his transition from professor to counterculture icon. Balancing Campbell’s astute explorations of mythology and history are his often amusing observations of a sometimes frustrating alien culture and his fellow Western travelers. This account also includes personal photographs, specially commissioned maps, and illustrations redrawn from Campbell’s own hand.


From the Publisher
The personal journal of the renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell during his year of travel in Asia in the fifties, enhanced by more than 60 previously unpublished photographs, specially commissioned maps, and illustrations redrawn from Campbell's own hand.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Joseph Campbell was one of the foremost interpreters of myth in our time. Yet when he traveled to Asia for the first time he was nearly fifty and at the crossroads of his life and career. This journal of those transformative six months in India - along with its companion volume, Sake & Satori, detailing his time in Japan and East Asia - are as close as Campbell ever came to writing an autobiography." "After ten years' intense study of Indian art and philosophy, Joseph Campbell embarked on this long-postponed journey. Searching for the transcendent (brahman) - the exotic mystery of the India in his books - he found instead stark realities: growing nationalism, cultural and religious rivalry, poverty, the impact of foreign aid, and a prevalent culture of what he called "baksheesh," or alms. This carefully kept journal chronicles the disillusionment and revelation that would change the course of his life and studies. It is at once a diary of his adventures, a forum in which he develops his revolutionary ideas and clarifies his future pursuits, and a record of his insightful discussions of art, philosophy, and transcendent realities with Indians from every level of society." Balancing Campbell's penetrating discussions of mythology and history are his often-amusing observations of an alien culture and his fellow Western travelers. The text is enhanced by more than sixty personal photographs, specially commissioned maps, and illustrations redrawn from Campbell's own hand. Baksheesh & Brahman illustrates Campbell's working method and grants an illuminating look at the thoughts and experiences of an incredible mind, as well as a revealing portrait of the roiling Indian subcontinent of fifty years ago.

SYNOPSIS

This volume contains an edited selection of the journal kept by Joseph Campbell, the famous writer on myth (he taught comparative religion at Sarah Lawrence College in New York until his death in 1987), while he was in India in 1954-55. An able writer, he included some personal anecdotes, but mainly used the journal to develop his theories on Indian religions and their relations with those in the West. Annotation c. Book News, Inc.,Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly