Summary

S. F. Oldenburg. The Culture of India. This book constitutes a collection of unpublished lectures and articles by a major national Orientalist Academician Oldenburg. Of particular note are his lectures on "The Fundamentals of Indian Culture", "The Influence of the East on Medieval Narrative Literature in the West", "An Introduction into Indian Art", "The Indian Theatre", and "Buddhism and Popular Cults". These lectures deal with various aspects of history, culture, art, literature and religion of the peoples of India. There is an outstanding selection of lectures on Indian art delivered by Oldenburg in 1919.

His articles and lectures objectively bear an imprint of the state-of-the-art in national Oriental studies in the 1920s-30s but, however, there is a lot of ideas in them which are of scholarly and cultural interest particularly today when there is a growing interest worldwide in civilizations created by the peoples of India and their contribution to global human culture. This collection provides an adequately comprehensive conception of Indian culture's historical evolution as viewed by Oldenburg.

The book is addressed to students in Oriental sciences and the humanities as well as to general readers with an interest in the classical culture of India.