Abstract
M OST readers of Thoreau's Walden have been aware of its Orientalism, but few have regarded it as more than a kind of Eastern icing on an essentially Western cake. One result of this failure consider the Oriental themes as organically connected with the book has been a tendency assess the book as a whole as a somewhat disjointed account of individuality: a splendidly iconoclastic attack on accepted mores and an attempt, as Thoreau himself put it, to wake neighbors up. Readers who view Walden in this way really consider it as a kind of Transcendental Poor Richard's A lmanack. They pause on the wisdom of remarks like beware of all enterprises that require new clothes,, The luxury of one class is counterbalanced by the indigence of another,2 and my greatest skill has been want but little.3 For such readers, chapters like The Ponds, Animals and The Pond in Winter can only be lapses of interest, or at best, interludes in nature observing. For them Walden as a whole cannot have a structural unity or overall purpose. Certainly there is no doubt that the book is permeated with a vaguely Hindu atmosphere. There are many overt references the sacred texts of India, as in How much more admirable the Bhagvat-Geeta than all the ruins of the East!4 And Thoreau himself follows certain Hindu customs: It was fit
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