Way to the Labyrinth: Memories of East and West - Softcover

Alain Danielou

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811210154 ISBN 13: 9780811210157

Publisher: New Directions Publishing, 1987

Synopsis

Alain Daniélou was an accomplished pianist, dancer, player of the Indian vînâ, painter, linguist and translator, photographer, and world traveler. To these attainments he has added The Way to the Labyrinth, translated into English by Marie-Claire Cournand. Born of a haute-bourgeoise French family--his mother an ardent Catholic, his father an anticlerical leftwing politician, his older brother a cardinal--Daniélou spent a solitary childhood. Escaping from his family milieu, he went to Paris, where he fell in with avant-garde, bohemian, sexually liberated circles, among whose luminaries were Cocteau, Diaghilev, Max Jacob, and Maurice Sachs. But however fervently he plunged into various activities, he felt some other destiny awaited him. After a number of journeys, some of them highly adventurous, he found his real home in India. He spent twenty years there, fifteen of them in Benares on the banks of the Ganges. There he immersed himself in the study of Sanskrit, Hindu philosophy, music, and the art of the ancient temples of Northern India, and converted to the Hindu religion. But times changed, and soon after India gained its independence, he returned to live again in Europe and devoted much of his great energy to the encouragement of traditional musics from around the world.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

'This book sings of the joy of abundance when a man fulfills himself - spirit, heart, and body - without denying anything in his given nature, without remorse, without fear, and this testimony is a hymn to life.' -Le Monde

About the Author:

Alain Daniélou (1907-1994) was a French historian, intellectual, musicologist, Indologist, and a noted Western convert to and expert on Shaivite Hinduism

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions Publishing
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0811210154
• ISBN 13: 9780811210157
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 360