Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- A Critical Introduction
- Chapter 1. Introduction
- Chapter 2. India in the Mind of Carl Jung: Before the Journey
- Chapter 3. How the Journey Began: Jung and British India
- Chapter 4. The Vastness of a Continent Behind
- Chapter 5. In the Vortex of Calcutta
- Chapter 6. Jung in Konarak, Madras, Mysore, Trivandrum, Madura (Madurai) and Ceylon
- Chapter 7. Jung’s Links with India after 1937
- Chapter 8. Conclusion
- Appendix A. Archival Extracts – Jung’s Public Engagements
- Appendix B. Archival Extracts – Personal Memoirs
- Bibliography
- Permissions and Credits
- Images and the credits / permission
- Epilogue
Figures
Frontispiece: Jung’s travel route in India
Figure 2.3.Gertrude Emerson Sen
Figure 2.4.V. Subramanya Iyer of Mysore
Figure 3.1.Dr Girindrasekhar Bose
Figure 3.2,a and b. Degree honoris causa – granted in absentia
Figure 4.1.A map of India in Jung’s collection
Figure 4.2.Taj Mahal Palace hotel, 1935
Figure 4.3,a and b. University of Allahabad confers honorary degree of Doctor of Science on Jung
Figure 5.1.Jung at Ramakrishna Mission, Belur, 1938
Figure 5.2.Kali temple in Calcutta
Figure 5.3.Presidency General Hospital in Calcutta
Figure 5.4.University of Calcutta
Figure 5.6.The Great Eastern Hotel, Calcutta
Figure 6.1.Hotel Taj Connemara in Madras.
Figure 6.2.The spacious lobby of the newly refurbished Hotel Connemara
Figure 6.3.One of the gates of Tirukalukundram
Figure 6.4.The Paramapada Sopana Patam (the Steps to the Highest Abode), an ancient Indian dice game
Preface
Jung in India is not a narration of Carl Jung’s psychological ideas with respect to India. It is a historical account of his journey to India and a description of the circumstances around which his relationship with India unfolded. Contrary to speculations, Jung travelled to India only once, in 1937–38. The book uncovers nuances of that journey and the trajectory of his relations with India. The revised edition comes with a critical introduction, where intersections between psychology, culture and history are discussed, keeping in view Jung’s sustained links with India and interest in alien cultures.
The book is spread over eight chapters and two appendices. The core theme is Jung’s journey of 1937. The opening chapters precede the actual journey, and the closing chapters describe his last links with India. The four chapters in the middle describe the journey in totality. Two appendices present important archival information about Jung in India. The introduction is preceded by details of Jung’s itinerary, reconceived from maps and diaries preserved at the family archives.
The introductory chapter describes the events that led to the inception of the study and relates this to Jung’s seminal conception of synchronicity. The historical sources of the study and the significance of Jung’s journey are also described in this chapter.
The second chapter outlines the backdrop of Jung’s relation with India. It takes us to the time when India was seeded in Jung’s mind, long before the journey was envisaged. Jung’s nascent links with India, his inquiries into Eastern culture and the Oriental texts that he studied are described here. A large part of his exploration was fostered through the fellowship of friends who shared his interest in the Orient. These collegial relations, the forums where the East was discoursed and the meetings that Jung had with Indians in Zurich helped him evolve his early impressions of India. The Oriental phenomenon in the West of the early 1900s stimulated Jung’s interests, and this is addressed in detail.1 These form the underlying conditions in which Jung’s early notions about India were nurtured.
The third chapter throws open the circumstances that brought about the journey, chief among these being Jung’s relations with the British and developments in Indian education and science. The Silver Jubilee Science Congress of 1938 around which Jung’s trip to India was conceived, are described.2 Jung would not have embarked on this tour had it not been for an invitation from the colonial government in India. The thrust of this chapter is in viewing the dovetail of coincidences that brought about Jung’s invitation to visit India. It traces how Fowler McCormick enters this story and other minutiae that preceded the journey.
Once in India, Jung’s itinerary was manifold. He travelled as a member of the official delegation, in the company of a large group of scientific stalwarts. This leg of the journey forms the theme of the fourth chapter. The celebratory tour, the events of the congress, the public functions and commemorations and the historic places he visited are all described. Some of Jung’s personal experiences are gleaned from archival records. They tell us how Jung grappled with the complexities of an alien Indian setting, travelling with a prominent scientific contingent, finding himself at odds with many things – the scientific party, Hindu temple sites and even the British whom he encountered in India.
The fifth chapter unfolds in Calcutta, the defining juncture of this narrative. Calcutta was the venue of the historic Silver Jubilee Congress of 1938. Jung was thrown into a whirlpool of events here. Jung’s illness and other developments around the Silver Jubilee Science Congress changed Jung’s orientation toward the journey. The intervening period of rest and retreat gave him time to collect himself, and as he convalesced, an extraordinary dream anchored him further. In Calcutta, towards the end of his stay, Jung experienced India’s colonial environment, met local Indians and participated in private and public get-togethers. The rudiments of Indian science, the events of the congress and the ‘storms’ that it raised in him are described.
The sixth chapter picks up the thread of the journey after Calcutta. Jung decided to move away from official protocol and embark on a private exploration in the south of India. After Calcutta, Jung travelled more or less incognito on a self-improvised itinerary. His sole companion was Fowler McCormick, with whom he devised several memorable excursions into the heart of India. Jung’s foray into southern India lends an altogether new flavour to the journey. He crisscrossed historic sites and acquainted himself with the ancient world of Hinduism. He met up with friends and fulfilled official engagements. In the final leg of the journey, Jung ventured into Ceylon and travelled to Kandy. Before leaving Ceylon, he returned to Colombo and attended formal and informal engagements. After Ceylon, Jung retreated from India and travelled back to Switzerland via Aden and Marseille.
The seventh chapter moves away from the history of the 1930s and traces the developments that followed Jung’s return from India. Jung took time to recoup and review his experience; his perceptions about India changed significantly after this journey. He lectured at the ETH on yoga and Eastern meditation practices in the winter of 1938, offering his observations and insights from his journey. In subsequent years, new links emerged with India, even as he continued to retain his old ties. There were those who had heard or met him in India who followed him to Zurich. There were others who recalled his visit and deliberated on his ideas from afar. These associations are few in number, but they reveal how India responded to Jung and how Jung himself looked at India following his journey. The memory of his visit faded gradually, and with the passage of time, little remained of his brief and eventful sojourn.
The last chapter of the book captures the historical significance of the journey and what this passage meant for Jung. An ancient legend brings to light the essence of cultural crossings, and we look at Jung’s passage in the light of this legend. The conclusion looks at the journey in its literal and symbolic sense. While the actual expedition takes us through diverse geographical landscapes of India, the cultural and psychological realms that it touches are more subtle and veiled. Some of Jung’s fundamental conceptions of the psyche are revisited to understand what he underwent in spirit in undertaking this journey.
The first appendix takes the reader through archival records that portray Jung’s formal engagements in India. These are reports of his public talks and lectures, interviews and descriptions of public functions and official engagements, which he participated in. Records of Jung’s later links with India are also included here. The second appendix offers accounts of Jung in personal settings. These testimonies give us glimpses of the subjective and personal side of Jung’s tour, set against the backdrop of the colonial era. They describe Jung’s private experiences, conversations and interviews and offer impressions of the people Jung met, the places he visited and the mementos he collected during his journey.
The narrative is not all-encompassing. There are those whom Jung knew or met that are as yet unknown. This book is perhaps the closest approximation of Jung’s history in India and will hopefully widen our engagement with the theme and foster a deeper understanding of Jung’s influence on other cultures and his inspirations from them.
1The Orient, Oriental and Orientalism are terms that are used interchangeably in this narrative. The Orient has been defined as the East and cultures belonging to the East. In the late nineteenth century, this included India, China, Japan and adjoining countries. The British referred to India as the Orient. The term comes from the Latin oriens, meaning East.
2The Silver Jubilee Science Congress is referred to variously as the Science Congress, the Indian Science Congress and the Twenty-Fifth Joint Science Congress.
Acknowledgements
This book was far from a solitary exercise. Many people joined me in its making, supporting the research. Jung in India would not have been written without them.
Goolbai Gunasekara responded to my enquiries about the late Dr W. S. Ratnavale and put me in touch with his son, Dr David Ratnavale, in Maryland, USA. David Ratanavle sent me the first archival clipping of Jung in Colombo. He also introduced me to Sri Lankan feminist scholar Dr Kumari Jayawardena, who forwarded me information about Jung’s engagements in Colombo. David, Kumari and Goolbai shared with me memories of their parents, pioneers in the field of education, in colonial Ceylon. This project would not have taken off without their warm and encouraging friendships.
Andreas Jung and Vreni Jung, in charge of the Jung Family Archives in Zurich gave me information about Jung’s itinerary and his links with India. Andreas Jung from the Foundation for the Works of C. G. Jung and Peter S. Fritz of the literary agency of Paul & Peter Fritz gave me the necessary permissions to reproduce archival documents pertaining to the journey and facilitated the copyright permissions for all extracts of Jung’s works used in this book.
Dr Aster Patel of the Centre of Indian Studies and Culture, Bharat Niwas, Auroville, Pondicherry, spent many hours with me reminiscing about her father, Prof Indra Sen and his life and work. She introduced me to Dr Soumitra Basu in Pondicherry, who gave me information on Prof Arabinda Basu. Soumitra also suggested where I should research on Jung in Calcutta. The late Prof Arabinda Basu, then ailing, sent me clippings of his article on Jung. I am grateful for their generosity.
A critical segment of the archival information came from The Ramakrishna Ashrama, Mysore, and The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture (RMICS), Kolkata, in India. I am grateful to monks of the Ramakrishna Mission, Mysore, for permitting me to work in their libraries and for sourcing for me valuable data on Jung’s links with India.
This work would not have been fruitful without the support of the staff of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata; Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi; the National Archives of India, New Delhi; Kerala State Archives, Trivandrum; The University of Kerala, Trivandrum; the Raman Research Institute, Bangalore and the National Library, Kolkata, in India. I am grateful for the co-operation I received from the staff in accessing archival records and for the numerous ways in which they facilitated my work. Staff and members of the Indian Psychoanalytical Society, Kolkata, gave me access to their library and information on Dr Girindrasekhar Bose. I am especially grateful to the staff of The Hindu, Chennai, for sourcing for me archival information on Jung in Trivandrum and to the staff of Malayala Manorama, Kottayam, for helping with my inquiries. I am thankful to Jason Pierce, Bhavana Nair, P. Muralidharan and Meenakshi Venkat at Newgen KnowledgeWorks, Chennai, for their inputs on the manuscript in the early stages of this work.
Dr Claudia Guggenbühl and Dr Kathleen Taylor responded warmly to my requests and facilitated the permissions for quoting from their books. Mr Girish N. Mehra allowed me to reproduce photographs from his book, and Dr Dagmar Bernstorff in New Delhi helped me in securing permission for Alfred Würfel’s book. Rosemary Bavister (Taylor and Francis), Jennifer Rowley (Random House) and Mike Schwartz (Princeton University Press) facilitated relevant permissions for C. G. Jung’s writings. The staff of the Jung Archives, ETH, Zurich, forwarded me information on Jung in the early stages of this research. I am grateful for their efforts.
Kusum Dhar Prabhu, Director of The Jung Centre, India, Bangalore, and Dr Jody Schlatter of ISAP, Zurich, were inspiring teachers who gave this study the necessary kickstart. Professor Gouranga Chattopadhyay mentored me richly on authority and role, lessons which I applied thoroughly in conducting this work. I am grateful for their love and support.
This book would not have come to light without Nancy Cater, editor, Spring Journal Books, who nurtured a genuine interest in it from the onset and remained committed to it till the end. I am thankful to Siobhan Drummond for her wonderful editorial efforts, to Bob Gagliuso for his inputs and to all of them for bringing the book to its present form. Any lapses or omissions in content, are mine.
Finally, my deepest gratitude for my family, especially my husband and son, who have supported and nourished my work and who together make my everyday life so rich and vital.
Sulagna Sengupta
Bangalore
Details
- Pages
- 300
- Publication Year
- 2025
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781803749754
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781803749761
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9781803749747
- DOI
- 10.3726/b22789
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2025 (June)
- Keywords
- Cross-cultural history analytical psychology Carl Jung India colonial era East-West journeys
- Published
- Chennai, Berlin, Bruxelles, Lausanne, New York, Oxford, 2025. 300 pp., 29 fig. b/w.
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