The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East

Spanning history from Alexander the Great through to the Beatles, Christopher Harding provides a comprehensive, erudite, and compelling account of the engagement of western thought, religion, philosophy and culture with those of India, China and Japan. His story is enlivened with personal vignettes of a variety of characters including Alan Watts, Bede Griffiths, Erna Hoch, George Harrison.It’s difficult to assimilate such an extensive coverage but one key question might be whether the west’s Enlightenment has equivalence in Asian concepts, or whether a symbiosis can offer some common holistic understanding of the human condition? Is there some objective existential virtue which humanity seeks, or with which humanity struggles? Notable points are Tolkien advising C S Lewis to interpret the Christian text as myth rather than as fact (p262), and Erna Hoch’s conclusion that ‘the spiritual quest must ultimately be a solitary one’ (p319). But Harding gives Christ the final word ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another…that is the whole gospel’ (p344).Interpreting religion as myth is far more meaningful than its interpretation as fact or doctrine, and is indeed the lost heritage of religion, lost largely due to its closure by religion’s institutions, depriving us of one route to virtue. Individuality is core to spirituality, because the groupings, movements and institutions it engenders run foul of ego and power. Love is the ultimate foundation but has to be Teflon-clad against disappointment if it is to persevere.Contemporary secular society with its reduction to physicalism needs to explore the metaphysical, the spiritual, and above all the source of virtue. Hopefully Harding’s book will be a prompt and guide.

This book is an extremely easy, succinctly pleasurable, read, but of course filled with the kind of insights that Harding customarily supplies. Opening the East, especially Japan, intellectually, but always in well measured and uncomplicated prose.Highly recommended for those wanting an entertaining read as well as a those seeking to engage more deeply.