EMERSON

 A

In Emerson and the Light of India, Robert Gordon notes that by the time Emerson finished his studies at Harvard, he had already explored many writings on India’s history, spiritual traditions, and religious practices. From these readings, Emerson absorbed four central ideas, according to Gordon: first, a recognition of India as a land rich in spiritual depth; second, the belief that the physical world flows from a divine source and that the aim of human existence is for the soul to recognize its fundamental unity with that source; third, the notion of maya, which views the diversity of material forms as an illusion that conceals an underlying oneness; and fourth, the belief in the soul’s passage from one body to another across multiple lifetimes.

A

References to Indian literature appear throughout his work. His 1846 poem “Hamatreya” draws directly from a passage in the Vishnu Purana, while the essay “Immortality” ends with a close retelling of the story of Yama, the god of death, taken from the Katha Upanishad. Most notably, the opening verse of his poem “Brahma” (“If the red slayer think he slays…”) echoes nearly word-for-word passages from both the Katha Upanishad and the Bhagavad Gita. These influences were far more than decorative literary touches—they formed a core foundation of Emerson’s philosophical outlook.

A