This paper offers an Indological interpretation of Kiran Desai’s novel The Inheritance of Loss analysing behaviours and dynamics that are even more meaningful in the light of Hindu ethics. Among the Hindu principles lurking behind the story, the most evident are the sin of samudrayana connected to the ocean voyage; the overlooking of dharma leading to the misfortune of some of the characters; the existential balance between opposites; the mythological Mount Meru represented by Mount Kanchenjunga; finally, the veil of Maya suggested by the constant presence of mist. DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-106 Bibliography Balanescu, Olivia. 2010. We Must Be Displaced to Be Replaced: Issues of Geographical Displacement and Interior Exile. Gender Studies , 1, 9: 187-197. Barton, Laura. 2006.A Passage from India. The Guardian , October 12, http://www.theguardian. com/books/2006/oct/12/bookerprize2006.thebookerprize (consulted on 07/02/2015). Cavaliere, Stefania. 2016. Eating and Fasting to Liberate the Mind: Some Remarks on the Theme of Food in Keśavdās’ Vijnānagītā . Cinzia Pieruccini & Paola M. Rossi eds. A World of Nourishment: Reflections on Food in Indian Culture . Milan: Ledizioni: 215-229. Concilio, Carmen. 2010. From West Bengal to New York: The Global Novels of Jhumpa Lahiri and Kiran Desai. Andrea Carosso ed. Urban Cultures of/in the United States: Interdisciplinary Perspectives . Bern: Peter Lang, 87-119. Desai, Kiran. 2006. The Inheritance of Loss . London: Penguin Books. Didur, Jill. 2011. Cultivating Community: Counterlandscaping in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss . Elizabeth DeLoughrey & George B. Handley eds. Postcolonial Ecologies: Litera- tures of the Environment . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 43-61. Flood, Gavin. 1996. An Introduction to Hinduism . London: Cambridge University Press. Ganguli, Kisari Mohan. 1883-1896. The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Translated into English Prose . Calcutta: Bharata Press. Griffith, Ralph T. H. 1895-1896. The Hymns of the Atharvaveda . Varanasi: E. J. Lazarus & Company. Grossato, Alessandro (a cura di) 2010. Alcuni aspetti simbolici e morfologici del Monte Meru. La montagna cosmica . Milano: Medusa, 91-97. Jay, Paul. 2010. Global Matters: The Transnational Turn in Literary Studies . Ithaca-London: Cornell. Jayaraman, Uma. 2011. John Peter Peterson or Jemubhai Popatlal Patel? The ‘Uncanny’ Dou- bleness and ‘Cracking’ of Identity in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss . Asiatic , 5, 1: 54-68. Keita, Keya. 2008. Crossing the Ocean. Hinduism Today , (July-August-September) 18-37. Klostermaier, Klaus K. 2001. Hindu Writings: A Short Introduction to the Major Sources . Oxford: Oneworld. Klostermaier, Klaus K. 2001. Hinduism: A Short History . Oxford: Oneworld. Lipner, Julius J. 1994. Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices . Abingdon: Routledge. Nazneem, Khan & Ravi Jauhari. 2011. Aspects of Immigration and Diasporic Sensibility in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss . Lapis Lazuli – An International Literary Journal , 1, 1: 1-8. Oyunn, Hestetun. 2010. Migration and Self-Transformation in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss . Johanna C. Kardux & Doris Einsiedel eds. Moving Migration: Narrative Transformations in Asian American Literature . Munster: Lit., 81-94. Pravin, Tatugade Ashwini. 2010. From Local to Global: A Reading of Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss . Wizcraft Journal of Language and Literature , 1, 1: 101-105. Ratti, Manav. 2013. The Postsecular Imagination: Postcolonialism, Religion and Literature. London-New York: Routledge. Rizvi, Nuzhat F. 2014. Conflicts of Globalization: A Study of Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss . IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science , 1, 5: 16-19. Rumnit, Kaur. 2012. Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss : A Study of Gyan’s Identity Crisis. International Journal of Research in Economics & Social Sciences , 2, 6: 14-36. Shands, Kerstin W. 2011. Hyperfabula of Gains and Losses: Immanent and Trascendent Nar- rative Perspectives in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss . Rita Christian & Judith Misrahi-Barak eds. India and the Diasporic Imagination/L’Inde et l’Imagination Diasporique . Montpelier: Presses universitaires de la Mediterranee, 165-178. Smriti, Daniel. 2007. Kiran Desai: The Inheritance of Loss . The Sunday Times – Sri Lanka , January 21, https://smritidaniel.com/2011/10/17/in-conversation-with-kiran-desai/ (consult- ed on 15/06/2015). Spielman, David Wallace. 2010. Solid Knowledge and Contradictions in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss . Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction , 51, 1: 74-89. Thakur, A. K. 2010. Loss of Human Values in The Inheritance of Loss . Journal of Literature, Cul- ture and Media Studies , 2: 296-303.