Steinbeck and The Bhagavad Gita

Abstract

Whether or not Steinbeck ever read The Bhagavad Gita , one thing is certain - he was, from the very beginning, as much interested in Eastern and Indian philosophy as he was in Western. His concept of the Over-Soul in To A God Unknown and The Grapes of Wrath has an echo of the adwaitic (non-dualistic) philosophy found in the Upanishads. Even the structure of The Grapes of Wrath owes much to the three sixes of The Bhagavad Gita,1 whereas the title of To A God Unknown is from a Vedic hymn about which he wrote to Carl Wilhelmson and Robert O. Bailou in letters of 1930 and 1933 respectively.2 He also added an entire Vedic hymn from the Rigved as an epigraph to show his familiarity with Indian concepts and books. Apart from all this, he had volumes 32 and 46 of The Sacred Books of The East in his own library, which he must have read desultorily, if not in detail, as is clear from his letter of February 11, 1933. Moreover, The Upanishads and Tagore's Sadhana were in Edward F. Ricketts's library, while Aubrary Meneri s translation of The Ramayana was in Steinbecks own personal collection of books. Robert DeMott suggests that Authur Keiths The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and the Upanishad is essential reading for a proper understanding of Steinbeck.3 And finally, his ending of the novel Cannery Row with a poem from Bilhanas Chaurapanchsikha, translated as Black Marigolds by Powys Mathers, also evidences his interest in ancient Indian writings. Though no corroborative evidence of his having read The Bhagavad Gita is available, he must have acquired some knowledge of its philosophical ideas and conceptual doctrines if in no other way than through the New England transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau