Dans l'Inde (de Ceylan au Népal) by Désirée Sylvain-Lévi
"Dans l'Inde (de Ceylan au Népal)" by Désirée Sylvain-Lévi is a travel memoir written in the early 20th century. It follows the author’s journey from Ceylon to India and toward Nepal with her Sanskritist husband, observing temples, cities, villages, and people across colonial South Asia. A central strand is their immersion in Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan, which frames reflections on education, art, and the rising nationalist movement. Readers can expect vivid scene-setting, candid
portraits, and finely observed notes on dress, ritual, cuisine, and everyday customs rather than a formal history. The opening of the narrative moves from a bustling landing in Colombo through a quick tour to Kandy and on to India, where the narrator contrasts Ceylon with the subcontinent’s broader sweep of dress, jewelry, and crowd life, and marvels at Madura’s teeming temple complex. After brief stops in Madras and Calcutta, the account settles into Santiniketan: open-air classes under trees, a fragrant, flower-strewn welcome, austere living, and a daily rhythm of prayers, songs, and study. The narrator teaches French beneath the mangos, while her husband lectures on Sanskrit and Buddhist literature; monks from Ceylon, artists, scholars, and reformers drift in and out. Village walks reveal Durga worship, Santal communities, and stark rural poverty, setting local color against the broader tension of Gandhi’s boycott and the Prince of Wales’s visit. Portraits of Tagore’s magnetism, his contrast with Gandhi’s program, and the international cast around him (Pearson, Andrews, a young agronomist, a Polish-Jewish chemist) deepen the picture. A brief Calcutta interlude with cultivated hosts highlights urban elegance and political unrest, before the return to Santiniketan for school fairs, bazaar stalls, and performances of Krishna and Radha—ending with the sobering sight of a child bride. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Sylvain-Lévi, Désirée, 1867-1943 |
|---|---|
| Title | Dans l'Inde (de Ceylan au Népal) |
| Original Publication | Paris: F. Rieder et Cie, 1925. |
| Credits | Laurent Vogel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | French |
| LoC Class | DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia |
| Subject | India -- Description and travel |
| Subject | Asia -- Description and travel |
| Subject | Sylvain-Lévi, Désirée, 1867-1943 -- Diaries |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77993 |
| Release Date | Feb 21, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 255 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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