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Walt Whitman’s Use of Indian Sources: A Reconsideration

Nathaniel Preston

Walt Whitman’s insistence on the absolute originality of his poetry often led him to deny or
obscure the intellectual and literary inf luences on his work. He began promulgating the myth
of himself as a natural poet of America as soon as he published the first edition of Leaves of
Grass in . In an anonymous review of his own book, published in September of , for
instance, Whitman asserts that he makes no allusions to books or writers; their spirits do not
seem to have touched him ( Leaves of Grass: A Volume of Poems Just Published ). Whitman’s
continuing assertions that his poems were the result of untainted inspiration have provided
critics with the challenge of deciphering the real influences which shaped the poet’s art. In
some instances Whitman has been shown to have appropriated others’ ideas and language
without properly acknowledging his debt, as in his use of Jules Michelet’s L’Oiseau in
composing To the Man-of-War Bird (Allen, Walt Whitman and Jules Michelet - ). However,
determining Whitman’s more general intellectual allegiances amid the many cross-currents
found in his writing has often proved to be a difficult task, appropriately so in the case of a poet
who contentedly claimed to contain multitudes ( Song of Myself, section ).
One particular line of criticism has sought to identify how Hindu mysticism resembles, or
perhaps has influenced, certain ideas found in Whitman’s writing. T. R. Rajasekharaiah observes
that as early as newspaper commentaries had noted a parallel between Whitman’s
thinking and Asiatic themes ( ). Much earlier, Ralph Waldo Emerson had also termed Leaves
of Grass a remarkable mixture of the Bhagvat Ghita and the New York Herald (Sanborn ). It
was not until the twentieth century, however, that Whitman’s ideas were compared to those of
specific Hindu traditions. Scholars in this area have attempted to find varying kinds of
significance in a parallel or connection between Whitman and Hinduism. Some critics feel that
Whitman was a genuinely inspired mystic. In such a view, he did not write under the influence
of Hindu ideas but rather reproduced Hindu insights from his own illumined state of
consciousness. The infamous progenitor of this view is R. M. Bucke, whose hagiographic chapter
on Whitman in Cosmic Consciousness contends that the poet was a saint on a par with Christ,
Buddha, and Mohammed. Malcolm Cowley follows somewhat more moderately in Bucke’s
footsteps by asserting that Whitman’s ideas may have originated after an experience similar to
the one for which the Sanskrit word is samadhi, or absorption ( Hindu Mysticism and Whitman’s
Song of Myself ’ ). O.K. Nambiar’s Whitman and Yoga ventures even further, arguing that
Whitman experienced the rising of his spinal kundalini energy and thereby attained cosmic
consciousness. Nambiar claims that Whitman, not having received formal instruction in the

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 Walt Whitman s Use of Indian Sources: A Reconsideration

breathing exercises and meditative techniques normally needed to awaken the kundalini, came
to that experience through innate ability. Nambiar finds section five of Song of Myself to be
especially indicative of this mystical occurrence, suggesting patterns of color that a person will
experience when the kundalini rises, and he likens Whitman’s experience to that of the Bengali
saint, Shri Ramakrishna. In The New Walt Whitman Handbook ( ), Gay Wilson Allen finds
Nambiar’s arguments interesting ( ), but other critics have not been receptive to the notion of
Whitman as a yogi. V. Sachithanandan’s short refutory article, Whitman and the Serpent
Power ( ) asserts that the sensations Whitman describes in section five of Song of Myself
actually do not match up very well to those encountered upon the true awakening of the
kundalini.
While it is not inconceivable that Whitman did undergo some sort of extraordinary experience,
it would be unwise to postulate a mystical awakening when the poet himself never claimed to
have experienced one. It was instead the disciples such as William D. O’Connor and Bucke
who formed and perpetuated the idea of Whitman as messiah, and their ideas came from their
own view of Whitman and his poetry. In Cosmic Consciousness, for instance, the only evidence
Bucke gives for Whitman’s supposed awakening is a few citations from the poetry. Certainly
people in all societies and in all ages have reported mystical experiences of varying content, but
in the case of Whitman the claims of the hot little prophets fail to carry much weight given
the silence of the man himself.
Other critics have pursued a more fruitful consideration of the similarities between ideas
found in Whitman and Ved nta, one of the six traditional schools of Indian philosophy
(dar㸼anas). These studies do not emphasize either the possibility of a mystical awakening or of
actual textual influence but instead use Ved nta as a philosophical model which accounts for
some apparently divergent trends in Whitman’s thinking. In short, the non-dual (advaita) school
of Ved nta asserts the unity of the nameless transcendent reality (Brahman) and material
existence, and this identification of matter and spirit mirrors Whitman’s insistence on being the
poet of both body and soul. Applying this philosophical view to Whitman has the advantage of
reconciling what most Western mystical traditions would find to be a contradiction in the poet’s
outlook. James E. Miller, Jr. uses Western religious traditions to suggest that Whitman wrote
under the influence of an inverted mystical experience, but critics who use Ved nta as a model
prefer to view the poet as expressing a form of mysticism grounded in a consistent metaphysical
framework.
Dorothy F. Mercer initiated critical discussion of Whitman and Ved nta in this vein with
her doctoral dissertation, Leaves of Grass and the Bhagavad Gita: A Comparative Study.
Although her dissertation was not published, Mercer did publish a number of articles in
Vedanta and the West documenting the presence of Ved ntic ideas in Leaves of Grass. V. K.
Chari contributed a significant addition to this line of critical inquiry with Whitman in the
Light of Vedantic Mysticism ( ) . Rather than simply making comparisons, Chari uses
Ved ntic philosophy as a tool to define Whitman’s thought. He comments, The Vedantic

2
comparison is to be understood simply as a critical instrument, one that I have used to define
and illustrate Whitman’s most basic ideas (xi). Chari asserts that the theme of self, of relating
the self to the world of experience, is central to the comprehensive intent of Whitman’s poems,
and proceeds to illuminate the strikingly Ved ntic quality of Whitman’s treatment of that
theme.
Comparative studies such as Chari’s face a substantial difficulty in the sense that Ved nta
must provide a comprehensive model of Whitman’s outlook for it to have any real significance.
Total conformity between Whitman’s ideas and Ved nta would provide invaluable insights into
the poet’s philosophy, but the truth is the two share only a partial resemblance. Any number of
inconsistencies between Whitman and Ved nta invite exploration, but the prime one that has
caused critics much consternation is the problem of sexuality. Hinduism defines four aims
which people can pursue in life: pleasure, material success, righteousness, and liberation from
the cycle of birth and death (k ma, artha, dharma, and mokṣa, respectively). Although each of these
is a legitimate aim, almost all Hindus, including Ved ntins, would consider it the height of
contradiction to pursue pleasure and liberation simultaneously. In her article, Silence as
Argument in Song of Myself,’ Carmine Sarracino attempts to reconcile this apparent
inconsistency between Whitman and Ved nta. She asserts that the sexual imagery in section
five of Song of Myself and the Calamus poems is not an expression of Whitman’s homoerotic
feelings but rather an analogy for the blissful experience of communion with the divine.
Sarracino supports this argument by noting the parallel found in Kabir’s mystical love poetry,
and she thereby opens a new perspective on the question of Whitman’s sexuality. She does not,
however, convincingly show the divine beloved invoked by Kabir to be the same as the
comrades who populate the Calamus poems. It may be true that Whitman wrote about
mystical experience in terms of sexuality, but it may be nonetheless true that he wrote about
sex and friendship as spiritual experiences. Further, Sarracino does not address the
biographical evidence available (such as that collected by Allen in The Solitary Singer [ ]) which
documents Whitman’s homoerotic tendencies. And Sarracino’s attempt to demonstrate a unified
Ved ntic view behind all of Whitman’s poetry lost some key support when Chari published a
revision of his views in l . In Whitman Criticism in the Light of Indian Poetics, Chari
concedes that Whitman’s celebration of sexuality does not bear out his earlier thesis that
Whitman’s views of the self and the universe were fundamentally spiritual and Ved ntic ( ).
Given the impossibility of ascertaining Whitman’s inner experience and the failure of
Ved nta to function as a total model of Whitman’s ideas, we are left with the simpler question
of direct intellectual influence. Did Hindu ideas to any degree inspire Whitman as he wrote
Leaves of Grass? T.R. Rajasekharaiah has already made a concerted effort to identify Hindu
sources for virtually all of Whitman’s ideas in The Roots of Whitman’s Grass ( ). Examining
the holdings of the libraries to which Whitman had access, Rajasekharaiah lists dozens of items
dealing with Eastern literature, philosophy, and religion which Whitman could have read.
Rajasekharaiah then attempts to prove that Whitman’s mysticism is really just a collection of

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 Walt Whitman s Use of Indian Sources: A Reconsideration

ideas surreptitiously borrowed from Hindu thinkers. He uses the term Hinduism in its
broadest sense of religion in India and thus includes occasional examples from Buddhism and
Jainism along with Vedic and post-Vedic ideas. I will follow him in using Hinduism in this
larger usage rather than restricting it to one particular sect or school such as Ved nta.
While some of the influences Rajasekharaiah suggests could well be genuine, for the most
part they simply cannot be accepted without stronger proof. It is one thing to explore what
Whitman might have read, but Rajasekharaiah concludes that Whitman must have read these
sources since Hindu mysticism constitutes the main stream of thought informing his writings
( ). This thesis is not only predicated on an assumption which cannot be proven but also claims
that mysticism is indeed the core idea which accounts for all of Whitman’s ideas. As we have
already seen, Indian religion, though in some ways an evocative parallel to Whitman’s thinking,
does not provide a key to the real Whitman as Rajasekharaiah suggests. Yet Hindu ideas and
texts undoubtedly had some degree of influence on the poetry, since they show up in his
writings. The aim of this study is to consider what these references tell us about the degree of
Whitman’s knowledge of and interest in Hinduism.
Whitman’s own statements on this topic are contradictory. H. D. Thoreau, in a letter to
Harrison Blake from December recounts his first meeting with Whitman. Thoreau
remarked that Whitman s poems were wonderfully like the Orientals and asked Whitman
whether he had read them. Whitman’s reply was No; tell me about them ( ). However, in the
preface A Backward Glance O’er Travel’d Roads, Whitman remarks that he had read the
ancient Hindu poems, among other important works of world literature, in preparation for
writing the edition of Leaves of Grass ( ). Since the poet himself (somewhat typically) does
not tell a consistent story about his knowledge of Hinduism, the best estimate we can achieve is
that which results from a careful examination of his works and reading he is known to have
done.
The first area to consider is the knowledge of Hinduism that Whitman possessed before
. If Indian thought did indeed play a crucial role in developing his views, then that
influence should be detectable before his first great poetic outburst. In the edition of
Leaves of Grass, the only Hindu references in the poetry appear in the first poem (which would
eventually become Song of Myself ). In section Brahma appears in the midst of a list of gods
who are termed the old cautious hucksters. Similarly, the speaker assists the lama or
brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols and declares that he is to shastas and vedas
admirant in section . Once again, these references appear in the middle of a catalog
describing a number of religions. Moreover, the overall purpose of sections through is to
show that the speaker has gone beyond traditional gods and religions: the speaker boasts that
My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, / Enclosing all worship ancient and
modern, and all between ancient and modern. These few references discuss Hinduism only as
part of the body of ancient cultures that the speaker strives to embrace and transcend. The
edition thus does not suggest that Whitman held a particularly strong interest in Hindu

4
thought.
The only primary Hindu source we are sure Whitman possessed at this time is described
nebulously by Bucke as leaves torn from a book on The Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma’
(Complete Writings l : part V). Rajasekharaiah tentatively identifies this as the article Extracts
from the Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma, from the July number of The Dial ( ). Assuming
this is indeed the correct attribution, we may conclude that Whitman could have gained
virtually no knowledge of Hinduism from this brief collection of aphorisms; Rajasekharaiah
admits that this little item is not of very great significance for Whitman’s knowledge of Indian
thought ( ). In fact, some of the selections run against the grain of Whitman’s deepest-held
beliefs: one holds that the difference between the body and the qualities is infinite; the body is
a thing to be destroyed in a moment, whilst the qualities endure to the end of the creation ( -
). The dualistic and anti-physical sentiment of this passage seems unlikely to have sparked
Whitman’s spiritualization of the body. Finally, the aphorisms provide none of the Hindu
terminology found in the first edition of Leaves of Grass.
Whitman’s pre- acquaintance with Indian thought can be more easily accounted for by
his reading of secondary sources. After culling out the many possible sources listed by
Rajasekharaiah, we are left with only two items he definitely read, both periodical articles
preserved among his papers ( ). One was J. D. Whelpley’s article, simply entitled Laws of
Menu, which was published in the May number of The Whig Review. The other was an
anonymous review of translations of the Mah bh rata and the R m yana entitled Indian Epic
Poetry which appeared in the October number of The Westminster Review. The very titles
of these articles suggest that Whitman was as interested in Indian literature and politics as he
was in Hinduism. Significantly, the two works account for all of the Sanskrit words in the
edition of Leaves of Grass. Indian Epic Poetry contains the words Vedas, Brahmins, and
Brahma. Laws of Menu contains Brahmins, Brahma, and shastra, which Whitman
likely misspells as shastas in the volume’s opening poem. Thus, we need not suppose that
Whitman’s readings went any farther than these articles.
Most of the other ideas found in the edition, although possibly influenced by Hindu
thought, can be accounted for by more immediate sources. One example is the poet’s assertion
of his own divinity: In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass
( Song of Myself, section ). This assertion is indeed reminiscent of the Upanishadic dictum that
the self ( tman) and the Absolute (brahman) are essentially one (Hopkins ). However, the same
idea can also be found in Emerson’s writings. Some of Emerson’s famous statements, such as
his description of feeling himself to be part or particle of God in the essay Nature, are much
more reasonable sources for Whitman’s own claim that the individual is divine ( Nature ). It is
likely that the early Whitman, so disdainful of foreign models, would have turned first to his
dear Friend and Master Emerson (as Whitman addressed him in the edition of Leaves of Grass)
rather than to Hinduism, a religion with which he seemed to have had only a passing
acquaintance ( Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson ). Emerson himself read Hindu texts and was

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 Walt Whitman s Use of Indian Sources: A Reconsideration

arguably influenced by Indian thought; as editor of The Dial he made the decision to publish
the extracts from Veeshnoo Sarma that Whitman was later to read. Whitman’s writing,
however, does not betray any awareness of Emerson’s interest in Indian thought.
The only other concept from the edition of Leaves of Grass that has a real claim to be
of Hindu origin is the ideal of the prudence suitable for immortality articulated in the Preface
( ). Although he never uses the word, this idea is almost identical to the Hindu concept of
karma. Certainly all religions are predicated on the notion that our futures are determined by
our actions in the present, but Whitman’s phrasing brings out the sense of the inevitable
fruition of past deeds, good or bad, that is particularly characteristic of Indian religions: All
that a person does or thinks is of consequence. Not a move can a man or woman make that
affects him or her in a day or a month or any part of the direct lifetime or the hour of death but
the same affects him or her onward afterward through the indirect lifetime. The indirect is
always as great and real as the direct ( ). Whelpley’s Laws of Menu could have provided a
source for such thinking in its summary of the doctrine of karma: Actions, says Menu, bear
fruit according to their spirit, whether good or evil; and from the actions of men proceed their
various transmigrations ( ). Both passages emphasize that actions can have effects which go
beyond the present lifetime. Whitman may well have found this idea in other sources, but his
sense of the inevitability and the long duration of the effects of action does appear to be
virtually identical to the doctrine of karma in the Laws of Manu (M nava-Dharma㸼 stra). Given
his reading of Whelpley’s article, this is one area where Hindu thought may have exerted a
genuine influence on him. It is also possible, however, that the prudence theory could derive
from Greek philosophy. Allen notes that Whitman’s prudence’ was long-range, Epicurean in
the true sense of the term: a sacrifice today may bring more lasting happiness tomorrow (The
Solitary Singer ). Whitman had an acquaintance with Epicurean philosophy based on his
reading of Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens, a book that he had been reading for some
years, and was later to call one of his favorites (Allen ). Thus, even though a Hindu source for
Whitman’s prudence is possible, it is by no means the only available explanation. It therefore
seems likely that Whitman did not make one source central to all his ideas but instead used a
wide range of reading to form what he felt was a new and distinctive American literature.
Since uniquely Hindu ideas are only minimally present in the first edition of Leaves of
Grass, and since Whitman does not appear to have read extensively about Indian religion
before its publication, it is reasonable to conclude that Hinduism did not have a significant
impact in the formation of his philosophy. The rest of his career shows that while he gained a
somewhat more detailed knowledge of India and Indian thought, he never gave it a central
place in his thinking.
After Whitman had many more sources for Hindu ideas available to him. Roger
Asselineau observes that he even bought scholarly books on the East, such as William Dwight
Whitney, Oriental and Linguistic Studies: The Veda; The Avesta; The Science of Language (New
York, ), and J. Muir, Religious and Moral Sentiments metrically rendered from Sanscrit

6
(London and Edinburgh, l ) ( : ). Rajasekharaiah adds that Thomas Dixon gave him a copy of
the Bhagavad Gita in and that he was given a copy of R.W. Alger’s The Poetry of the East in
or ( ; ). He also received a copy of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
from Thoreau in , taking the trouble to cut out and preserve pages dealing with the Laws of
Manu (Rajasekharaiah ; ).
Despite having so much more material to work with, Whitman’s treatment of Hinduism
reflects only a moderate increase in his understanding of that religion. He continued to use
Sanskrit terms in his poetry, but for the most part they were neither more numerous nor more
significant than the references in the edition. Some require little comment. In the late
poem Twilight Whitman uses the word nirwana in association with images of death. This
fits well with the word’s essential meaning of the blowing out’ or extinction’ of desire (Hopkins
). Other usages shed light on the degree of familiarity Whitman had with some facets of
Hindu philosophy. The poem So Long contains one example:
I feel like one who has done work for the day to retire awhile,
I receive now again of my many translations, from my avataras ascending, while others
doubtless await me,
An unknown sphere more real than I dream’d, more direct, darts awakening rays about me,
So long! ( - )
In the Norton Critical edition the word avatara is glossed as incarnation’ or embodiment’
( n) , and those are common translations of the term. Although such a definition is not
incorrect, the idea of incarnation is shaded by the Christian notion of the Word becoming
flesh. The Sanskrit avat ra literally means the descent of a deity into the world (Hopkins ).
Whitman thus appears to be fairly sophisticated in his use of this word, stating that he is
ascending from his previous descents into human birth. He may well have picked up this
usage from Indian Epic Poetry, as it is once defined as descent in that essay ( ).
Another poem, Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me? , expresses a theme
common to the Calamus cluster in which it resides, the uncertainty of outer appearances. The
poem concludes:
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought O dreamer that it may be all maya, illusion? ( - )
In this case, Whitman’s use of m y does not reveal deep insight into the meaning of the term.
J.P. Rao Rayapati comments,
Maya is naively and inadequately translated into English as illusion . . . . What is denied
by Maya is not the reality of the world, but only the ultimacy of this phenomenal world.
The concept of Maya seems to serve a purpose which is explained by Heinrich Zimmer in
these words: The secret of Maya is this identity of opposites. Maya is a simultaneous-and-
successive-manifestation of energies that are at variance with each other, processes
contradicting and annihilating each other. . . . Therefore, Maya is not to be understood as a
world and life negating doctrine. . . . ( - )

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 Walt Whitman s Use of Indian Sources: A Reconsideration

Zimmer’s commentary on m y as an identity of opposites recalls Whitman’s integration of

body and soul, but Whitman himself uses the term in a purely negative sense to mean a false
and betraying appearance. He seeks not to bring out the significance of m y as a Hindu
philosophical term but to use it as material for the theme of the illusoriness of reality that runs
throughout the Calamus section. Other poems, such as Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances,
and I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing also raise questions about the basic nature of
reality and the radical aloneness of all people. In Calamus, the recurrent conclusion is that
such problems can be solved by the love of comrades, something completely unlike answers
found in Hinduism. Whitman’s knowledge of the term could have come from Indian Epic
Drama, as it provides the usual gloss of m y as illusion ( ).
A final example from the poetry is the use of sudra in Chanting the Square Deific. In
this poem, Whitman depicts a fourfold god which contains as one of its aspects a Satanic side:
Aloof, dissatisfied, plotting revolt,
Comrade of criminals, brother of slaves,
Crafty, despised, a drudge, ignorant,
With sudra face and worn brow, black, but in the depths of my heart, proud as any, ( - )
All of the traits listed in this passage resonate with the word sudra (㸼 dra). The Hindu varṇa-
dharma defines four classes of people who are ranked by their level of purity, social status, and
profession. The sudras, as the lowest caste, are servants of the other three. The word varṇa
literally means color, and sudras are associated with the color black. The blackness, as
Rajasekharaiah notes, is connected with the theory that the sudras are of Dravidian racial
background in contrast to the other, nominally Aryan castes ( ). They are also considered
black because their spiritual nature is thought to be characterized by tamas or darkness
(Hopkins ). For these reasons sudras have been despised in Hindu society and are excluded
from Vedic initiation, making them ignorant as well. Whitman’s phrasing in this passage thus
appears to reflect detailed knowledge of the significance of this term. However, he uses the word
sudra to characterize one facet of a larger metaphysical structure that bears little resemblance
to anything found in Hinduism: the four-sided Square Deific does not easily correlate with the
many trinities found in Hindu thought. Again, Whitman demonstrates an awareness of Hindu
ideas but does not make them the focal point of his philosophy. Elsewhere in the poem he
equates Old Brahm with Saturnius and Lord Christ with Hermes ( , ). Whitman thus
gives Hindu concepts a more prominent role than they receive in the many catalogs and lists
mentioned earlier, yet those concepts remain, along with the classical and Judeo-Christian
traditions, the raw materials out of which he seeks to forge a new mythos that both
encompasses and transcends the world’s religions past and present.
A number of Hindu references appear in Whitman’s prose as well, but they tend to be brief
and of little significance. In Democratic Vistas ( ), he mentions the endless epic of the
Hindus ( l) , and he even lists the names of some of the heroes of the R m yana and
Mah bh rata: Yudhistura, Rama, Arjuna ( n) . Rajasekharaiah concludes that these

8
references are obviously the product of actual reading of the two epics of India ( ). While
Whitman may have done such reading, he could well have gotten the names from the
Westminster Review article on Indian Epic Poetry. And as we have seen with Whitman’s poetry,
both of the above references from Democratic Vistas occur in lists of poems and characters from
other ancient literatures, suggesting that Whitman viewed them as part of the cultural
background out of which his new American literature would arise.
In a few places, however, Whitman demonstrates some awareness of the content of the
Indian epics. In Specimen Days ( ) he quotes from what he generically terms an Old Hindu
Poem :
Clothed in his white garments,
Into the round and clear arena slowly entered the brahmin,
Holding a little child by the hand,
Like the moon with the planet Jupiter in a cloudless night-sky. (CW : )
This passage is from the Mah bh rata, describing the scene where Drona, the master of combat
techniques and military strategy, enters the arena before the mock combat of his pupils.
Initially one is tempted to conclude that Whitman must have read original Hindu sources, but
this quotation is more likely a paraphrase of a part of Indian Epic Poetry which depicts the
same scene:
With the noise of the musical instruments, and the eager voices of the spectators,
The din of the assembly rose up like the roaring of the sea;
When lo! wearing his white raiment, and the white sacrificial cord,
With his snow-white hair and his silvery beard, and the white garland round his head,
Into the midst of the arena slowly walked the Brahmin with his son,
Like the sun with the planet Mars in a cloudless sky! ( - )
Intentionally or not, Whitman’s version distorts the original, but the basic identity of the
passages seems clear.
Only one passage in Whitman’s prose indicates that he ever read the epics themselves. In
November Boughs ( ) the poet remarks,
The finest blending of individuality with universality (in my opinion nothing out of the
galaxies of the Iliad, or Shakespeare’s heroes, or from the Tennysonian Idylls, so lofty, devoted and

starlike,) typified in the songs of those old Asiatic lands. Men and women as great columnar
trees. Nowhere else the abnegation of self towering in such quaint sublimity; nowhere else
the simplest human emotions conquering the gods of heaven, and fate itself. (The episode, for
instance, toward the close of the Mahabharata the journey of the wife Savitri with the god of
death, Yama,
One terrible to see blood-red his garb
His body huge and dark, bloodshot his eyes,
Which flamed like suns beneath his turban cloth,
Arm’d he was with a noose,

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 Walt Whitman s Use of Indian Sources: A Reconsideration

who carries off the soul of the dead husband, the wife tenaciously following, and by the resistless

charm of perfect recitation! eventually redeeming her captive mate.) (CW : - )

The story of Savitṛi appears in Indian Epic Poetry, but Yama is never described in this
manner. Rajasekharaiah notes that nothing like it appears in Alger’s Poetry of the East, either
( ). The most likely conclusion is that Whitman, intrigued by the brief description of Savitṛi in
Indian Epic Poetry, found a translation of the story that contained the passage he quotes (or,
knowing Whitman, one roughly like it). Rajasekharaiah cites a version by Sir Edwin Arnold that
closely resembles Whitman’s quotation above ( ).Whatever its origin, this description of Yama
confirms that Whitman had some contact with Hindu literature outside of the secondary
sources mentioned above.
The prose references thus suggest that Whitman gradually became more familiar with the
Indian epics, as he discusses them in greater depth in his later works. Such a conclusion is
complicated, however, by a possible reference to the Indian epics in the earlier Democratic
Vistas. In a passage exploring the nature of the individual, Whitman writes of a consciousness,
a thought that rises, independent, lifted out from all else, calm, like the stars, shining eternal
( ). Shortly thereafter, he comments that this higher consciousness alone takes possession,
takes value. Like the shadowy dwarf in the fable, once liberated and looked upon, it expands
over the whole earth, and spreads to the roof of heaven ( ). As I have argued elsewhere, this
shadowy dwarf is almost certainly a reference to the V mana avatar of Vishnu (Preston ).
This legend tells of a demon named Bali who, having conquered the gods, declared himself as
the ruler of the earth, atmosphere, and heavens. Vishnu, entreated by the other gods, agreed to
reclaim the world from Bali. Vishnu took birth as the dwarf V mana and went to see the
demon. Bali knew that this humble visitor was actually the lord Vishnu, and offered him a gift
out of respect. V mana requested a mere three steps of land, which he would use for his own
sacrificial ground. But when Bali acquiesced,V mana expanded to the size of the universe and
crossed its layers (earth, atmosphere, and heaven) in three strides. Since Hindu literature contains
thirty versions of the V mana myth, Whitman seems likely to have run across it in the course
of his reading, perhaps in Horace Wilson’s translation of the Vishnu Pur ṇa or in William
Carey’s rendition of the R m yana (Soifer ; Rayapati - ).
Ironically, then, the supporters of the Indian or Ved ntic Whitman have overlooked the
one place where Whitman makes a link between Hindu myth and an elevated state of
consciousness. In this passage, the Hindu source is not part of a catalog of ancient creeds, but
instead provides a metaphor for the expansive consciousness possible in states of
contemplation. And the fact that Whitman does not emphasize the Hindu origin of his reference
is also significant, suggesting that Whitman is interested in the V mana myth for its content
and not for its exotic cultural status. Still, this one reference is far from sufficient to grant
Indian thought any more than a peripheral place in Whitman’s thinking.
The references in both the prose and poetry show that Whitman eventually gained a
sporadic knowledge of Hinduism much greater than that revealed in the edition of Leaves

10
of Grass, yet there is little evidence suggesting that Indian religions ever exerted a major
influence on his ideas. As we have seen, he most frequently refers to Hindu concepts as
subsidiary illustrations of other themes, none of which are distinctively Hindu. India appears to
have held significance for him mainly as the cradle of human civilization, a primal home out of
which he believed European feudalism, and eventually American democracy, evolved. In A
Broadway Pageant he describes India as The Originatress, and as The nest of languages, the
bequeather of poems, the race of eld ( , ). Likewise, Passage to India speaks of the East as
the soothing cradle of man. The poem subsequently depicts the progression from Indian
civilization through the sunset splendor of chivalry declining and eventually the spiritual
dawn that Whitman associated with America ( - ).
To Whitman, then, India does not hold timeless truths, but is rather situated within a
historical progression which will come to fulfillment only on the American continent. In
Democratic Vistas he asserts that almost everything that has been written, sung, or stated, of
old, with reference to humanity under the feudal and oriental institutes, religious, and for other
lands, needs to be rewritten, resung, restated, in terms consistent with the institution of these
States, and to come in range and obedient uniformity with them ( ). India may be America’s
venerable and praiseworthy progenitor, but Whitman emphasizes the creative reworking of
tradition and not a direct transmission of spiritual wisdom. Certainly, Whitman’s thought was
in some way inf luencedby the poet’s encounter with primary and secondary Hindu texts, just as
he was inf luenced by his study of ancient Greek and Egyptian civilizations. Hinduism, far from
being, as Rajasekharaiah puts it, the main stream of thought in the mighty river of
Whitman’s work, is only one of many tributaries feeding a much broader current ( ). While
sounding his sources of knowledge about Indian religion has brought us a little closer to the
poet, he remains, as he always wished, elusive.

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Allen, Gay Wilson. The New Walt Whitman Handbook. New York: New York UP, .
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Asselineau, Roger. The Evolution of Walt Whitman. vols. Cambridge. MA: Belknap, .
Bucke, Richard Maurice. Cosmic Consciousness. New York: E. P. Dutton, .
Chari, V. K. Whitman Criticism in the Light of Indian Poetics. In Ed Folsom, ed., Walt Whitman: The
Centennial Essays. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, . - .
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Cowley. Malcolm. Hindu Mysticism and Whitman’s Song of Myself.’ In Norton Critical ed. - .
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Extracts From the Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma. Charles Wilkins, trans. The Dial . (July ):
- .
Hopkins, Thomas J. The Hindu Religious Tradition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, .

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 Walt Whitman s Use of Indian Sources: A Reconsideration

Indian Epic Poetry. Westminster Review (October ): - .

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California, .
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