The Indo-German Identification: Reconciling South Asian Origins and European Destinies, 1765–1885 (review)

Robert Cowan’s book is a welcome addition to the growing secondary literature on the influence of Indian thought and culture on Germany. Building on the works of such scholars as Dorothy Figueira, The Indo-German Identification joins other recent works such as Nicholas A. Germana’s The Orient of Europe: The Mythical Image of India and Competing Images of German National Identity (2009) in reassessing this cultural influence. Although certain sections of Cowan’s book are not entirely convincing, there is, overall, much to recommend.

Cowan begins by offering an overview of India in the European imagination, from the ancient Greeks through the mid eighteenth century. This is a useful summary for those new to the topic, showing how views of India often oscillated between two contrasting images: as a site of ancient wisdom, and as a land of incomprehensibility. In the next two chapters, Cowan sketches the beginnings of European Indology, showing how increased European interest in Sanskrit made possible the Indian influence on German thought that Cowan traces in his later chapters. This influence would not be possible without the pioneering work of both French and English scholars, Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron and William Jones among them.

Cowan then turns to the case of Johann Gottfried Herder, whom he calls “our first true Indo-German” (51). Herder’s belief that the human race originated in the Himalayas, a view shared by Kant, would remain influential in Indo-German thought for over a century (53). After Herder, “a true Indo-mania” would develop in early German romanticism (57).

Novalis is one of these Frühromantiker influenced by Indian thought. Cowan reads the Hymnen an die Nacht as containing many parallels to the fifth-century drama of Shakuntala, building on work by Romila Thapar and A. Leslie Willson. Cowan cites Walter Leifer in stating that Sophie von Kühn, Novalis’s fiancée, “was known as ‘Shakuntala’ in the Hardenberg household” (81–82). Cowan then analyzes the philosophy of F. W. J. Schelling, arguing that the latter’s reading of the Gitagovinda influenced his earlier work. There is, however, only a single reference to the Gitagovinda in Schelling’s œuvre, which Cowan quotes (102–3). Cowan sees the “equanimity” of the Sanskrit poem as influencing Schelling’s “Indifferenzpunkt” (91).

At the end of the discussion on Schelling, Cowan notes how Schelling’s beliefs later moved toward “Lutheran orthodoxy” (103). This ultimate rejection of Indian influence is even more pronounced in the case of Friedrich Schlegel, who famously converted to Catholicism in the same week as the publication of his work Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (107). Cowan’s argument that Schlegel ultimately rejects Hinduism and Buddhism because they are based on concepts that do not have parallels in Christianity—specifically, the void—is cogent and well-argued. This is one of the strongest chapters in the book.

Also strong are the following two chapters on Hegel and Schopenhauer. Hegel had an “encyclopedic knowledge of [India], and yet . . . he continually denigrated Indian thought and culture as misguided, lazily conceived and executed, and ultimately without net import in the march of history” (140). Schopenhauer admitted he did not find Sanskrit poetry appealing, yet was heavily influenced by its philosophy of theology. Schopenhauer is different than the Frühromantiker, since he will “not reject Hindu and Buddhist ideas later in life in favor of Christianity” (144). Indeed, of all the figures Cowan discusses, it is Schopenhauer for whom the Indian influence lasts longest and remains strongest.

Of course, Schopenhauer’s influence upon Friedrich Nietzsche is well-known, nevertheless, the inclusion of a chapter in The Indo-German Identification on the latter is problematic. As Cowan concedes, Nietzsche is something of an “Anti-Indo-German” (163). As the author further admits, “While Nietzsche did not directly cite the influence of Hindu and Buddhist texts, their impact is to be felt through the influence of Schopenhauer” (164). This argument based...