ECHOES OF THE EAST IN T.S. ELIOT‘S THE WASTE LAND (1922)

Abstract

The time-honored and hoary perspicacity of ancient India has put together scores of intellectuals in the West, among whom; Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 1888- 4 January 1965) is barely credible and high-flying. Like W. Somerset Maugham, T.S. Eliot also believed in, “The East has more to teach the West than the West conceives.” Eliot had indubitably a high concept of that art which had a propensity to be timeless, everlasting and philosophical, and not that art which was bound to the temporal.                                                                                                                                  T. S. Eliot was one of the significant literary figures in twentieth century- an age that not only witnessed two horrendous and appalling World War, but also experienced rapid changes in social fabric, courtesy brisk mechanization, industrialization, urbanization and of course mass consumption. Eliot was an ardent student of philosophy and took exceptional and special interest in Indian and Hindu philosophy. In a true fortitude and spirit of a universal and philosophical poet, Eliot drew upon certain Indian sources and ideas such as The Bhagwad Gita, The Vedas, The Upanishads, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra and Buddhism to put them in order  to an  ingenious, creative and artistic use when he came to composing his own poetry.