When a great tradition modernizes: an anthropological approach to Indian civilization

This book is a record of one traveler's passage to India, begun in 1953 and still not finished after three trips and continuing study. The passage has been a journey of discovery about India, its people, problems, and civilization. It has also brought discovery about America and Europe, oneself, and human culture-a passage to more than India, in Whitman's words.
The method of discovery has been the anthropological one, getting to know another culture in its own terms, India, however, was not just out there waiting to be understood. It had already been discovered and re discovered many times in other people's terms. India has been struggling to free herself from these foreign terms since Independence. The foreign visitor must struggle to understand India through and beyond these terms.
No traveler to India goes with pure eyes or an untouched mind. He is lured by the fabulous or exotic and spiritual images that have passed over India like the mist of her hills. These are the private goals and the childhood dreams of that journey to the East which Herman Hesse says also aims at lofty public goals.