Indomania
Sweetheart, I carry you away,
Away to the fields of the Ganges,
Where I know the most beautiful place. ~ Heinrich Heine
Indomania or Indophilia refer to the special interest that India, Indians and their cultures and traditions have generated across the world, more specifically among the cultures and civilisations of the Indian subcontinent, as well those of the Arab and Western worlds (particularly in Germany). The initial British interest in governing their newly absorbed territories awoke the interest in India, in particular its culture and ancient history. Later the people with interests in Indian aspects came to be known as Indologists and their subject as Indology. Its opposite is Indophobia.
Quotes
[edit]- Auf Flügeln des Gesanges,
Herzliebchen, trag' ich dich fort,
Fort nach den Fluren des Ganges,
Dort weiß ich den schönsten Ort.- On Wings of Song,
Sweetheart, I carry you away,
Away to the fields of the Ganges,
Where I know the most beautiful place. - Heinrich Heine, "Auf Flügeln des Gesanges" (1827)
- On Wings of Song,
- In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it. Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but possessed by nothing.
- Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana, recognized the experience of Apollonius in India. Quoted in Max Lenderman, Brand New World: How Paupers, Pirates, and Oligarchs are Reshaping Business (2010), p. 74
- India is the land of religions, cradle of human race, birthplace of human speech, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition. The land that all men desire to see and having seen once even by a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of the rest of the globe combined.
- Mark Twain, reported in Paul Fatout, Mark Twain on the Lecture Circuit (1960), quoted in Salil Gewali, Great Minds on India (New Delhi: Penguin Random House, 2013)
- Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India.
- Mark Twain, reported in The Dragon and the Elephant: China, India and the New World Order (2007), quoted in Salil Gewali, Great Minds on India (New Delhi: Penguin Random House, 2013)
