Aspectos Do Paganismo No Pensamento de Nietzsche

Nietzsche's Hinduism, Nietzsche's India: Another Look
Author(s): David Smith

Source: Journal of Nietzsche Studies, No. 28 (AUTUMN 2004), pp. 37-56
Published by: Penn State University Press
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Nietzsche's Hinduism, Nietzsche's India:
Another Look
David Smith
his essay attempts a provocative overview ofNietzsche's relationship with

JL Hinduism and India.1 It is a reading thatfindsNietzsche offbalance and at
a disadvantage, for its startingpoint is the fact thatNietzsche read theLaws of
Manu [Manavadharmasastra]2?the one Indian text that really excited him?
in a popular edition whose absurd annotation of the textgained Nietzsche's cre
dence. I refer to Louis Jacolliot's French translation.3Manu was a relatively
well-known text in nineteenth-centuryEurope and Jacolliot was a popular and
indeed notorious writer. Nietzsche's choice of version shows, I suggest, igno
rance of both scholarly and popular writing on India. I shall also consider
Nietzsche's relationship with other key Hindu texts and his other references to
Hinduism and India. In linewith the startingpoint of Jacolliot,my discussion
continues mainly in thecontext of French writers contemporarywith Nietzsche,
particularly Ernest Renan, the hugely successful author of Vie de J?sus and
Professor of Semitic Languages at theColl?ge de France, in some respects a tri
umphant alter ego ofNietzsche, being both philologist andwide-ranging thinker,
though today theirrelative importance is reversed. I conclude with brief assess
ments of the eternal return and the ?bermensch in relation toHinduism, and
with a look atNietzsche's own India, as distinct from his Hinduism.
Nietzsche, Jacolliot, and Manu
InNietzsche's day therewas considerable academic and popular interestin India

and the religion of themajority of its inhabitants.Louis Jacolliot was not only
a translatorofManu but also was a major popularizer of Hinduism and India.
After thefirstflush of Enlightenment and thenRomantic enthusiasm, European
writing on India had become unfavorable toHindus and Hinduism. Jacolliot's
extreme enthusiasm for early Hinduism and with what seemed to be long and
wide experience of contemporary India was amore or less unique combination,
and for a while a winning one. In his heyday, the 1870s, Jacolliot's Hinduism
and Jacolliot's India were significant factors on thepopular literaryand cultural
scene?not only in France but also in Britain, theUnited States, and India,
notwithstanding that theywere theproduct of the imagination of a sillyman. It
Journal ofNietzsche Studies, Issue 28, 2004
Copyright ?2004 The Friedrich Nietzsche Society.
37
38 David Smith
isbizarre tojuxtapose Nietzsche with Jacolliot, thenow immensely famous intel

lectwith theforgottenfraud,but thejuxtaposition arises fromNietzsche's acqui
sition and reading of Jacolliot's book. In Jacolliot's favor is the fact thathe did
know something about India, whereas Nietzsche is primarily an expert on him
self, and theworld as seen in themirror of himself, his work "a bible for the
solitaryman."4 Jacolliot's India of occultism and dancing girls is the real thing
misunderstood and embroidered by his imagination; Nietzsche's India is based
"
onNietzsche. Marcel Conche said, 'Nietzsche and Buddhism,'" which "means:
"'Nietzsche and Buddhism' as he wishes to see it"5?so too Nietzsche and
Hinduism.
Both Hinduism and Buddhism are of interest toNietzsche not in themselves
but as alternative positions fromwhich to continue his attack on Christianity.
Nietzsche declares that "the critic of Christianity is profoundly grateful to the
students of India" formaking Buddhism available as a religion to compare with
Christianity.6 Itmay fairlybe assumed thatNietzsche felt a similar gratitude in
respect of the availability of Hinduism. Buddhism, as a pessimistic and deca
dent religion forNietzsche, resembles Christianity "but is a hundred times [...]
more truthful,more objective" (A 23). Hinduism is an affirmativereligion rather
than a negative one like Buddhism and Christianity, but, like Buddhism, it is a
product of the ruling orders (KSA 13:14[195]/WP 154).7
Nietzsche seldom referred toHinduism; nor did he use theword Hinduism,
speaking rather of Brahmanism, theVedanta, or Indian philosophy. However,
theonly extensive Indian text thathe chose unprompted to read forhimself was
a central textofHinduism not relating tophilosophy, namely, Louis Jacolliot's
version of theLaws ofManu. A valuable account of the defects of Jacolliot's
book has been given by Ann-Marie Etter. However, the question needs to be
considered more widely. That Nietzsche read Jacolliot's Manu with enthusiasm
is astonishing, but no less remarkable are the implications for the state of his
previous knowledge ofHinduism and India.
Misunderstanding has been aggravated by the fact thatLouis Jacolliot, still a
well-known figure at the time of his death in 1890, quickly faded away into
deserved oblivion. For long itwas thought simply thatNietzsche read theLaws
ofManu in translation and was excited by them.Thus evenWendy Doniger and
Brian K. Smith in the 1991 Penguin translationof theLaws ofManu, when men
tioningwhat theyadmit is his "extraordinary interpretationof the text," remark
in a footnote that "presumably, Nietzsche knew Hiittner's 1797 German trans
lation."8 However, it has been known from the publication of the Colli and
Montinari edition ofNietzsche thatNietzsche uses Jacolliot's Manu. It is one of
the books he possessed, and it shows marks of attentive reading. He refers to
Jacolliot by name in one of his notebooks, and sometimes gives page numbers
with the extracts thathe translates intoGerman. No other Indian text excited
Nietzsche in thisway. There is no record of his having read through any other
Nietzsche's Hinduism, Nietzsche's India 39
Indian text entirely on his own initiative.He looked at books about Hinduism
and Buddhism, but as Renan said, for a philologist there is nothingmore impor
tant than reading original texts.9Of course, with The Birth ofTragedy,Nietzsche
had leftphilology behind him; but he still lays claim to a philologist's style of
reading, as inDaybreak: "slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft,with
reservations" (D P5).10 But this is theway he wants to be read, not theway that
he reads other people.
The way thatNietzsche writes toHeinrich K?selitz (PeterGast) about his dis
covery ofManu (31 May 1888) calls for the careful reading Nietzsche would
want forhis published work:
I owe to these lastweeks a very importantlesson: I foundManu's book of laws

ina French translationdone in Indiaunder strictsupervisionfromthemost emi
nentpriestsand scholars there.This absolutelyAryanwork, a priestlycodex of
morality based on the Vedas, on the idea of caste and very ancient (uralten) tra
dition?not pessimistic, albeit very sacerdotal?supplements my views on reli
gion in themost remarkableway. I confess to having the impression that
everythingelse thatwe have by way ofmoral lawgiving seems tome an imita
tionand even a caricatureof it?preeminently,Egypticismdoes; but even Plato
seems tome in all themain points simply to have been well instructedby a
Brahmin. Itmakes theJews look likea Chandala racewhich learnsfromitsmas
terstheprinciplesofmaking a priestlycaste themasterwhich organices a peo
ple. The Chinese also seem tohave produced their Confucius andLao-Tse under
the influenceof thisancient classic of laws.The medieval organizationlooks like
a wondrous gropingfora restorationof all the ideaswhich formedthebasis of
primordial (uralte) Indian-Aryansociety?but with pessimistic values which
have their origin in the soil of racial d?cadence. Here too, the Jews seem to be
merely transmitters?they invent nothing.11
It is not entirely clear fromNietzsche's phrasing here whether or not he had pre
viously heard ofManu. As we shall see, he certainly had; but the contents of
Manu's book seem new to him. He is not simply explaining toGast what he
thoughtGast might not have known, since he begins his account of theLaws of
Manu, "I owe to these lastweeks a very importantlesson [Belehrung]." He must
mean here either thecontents ofManu's law book were new tohim, or Jacolliot's
was new tohim. Either reading isdevastating toany claim tomerit
interpretation
inNietzsche's understanding ofHinduism. Nietzsche in this letterclearly takes
on board Jacolliot's absurd claim thatManu is the ultimate source of all law
codes, and even more absurdly,with no relation whatsoever to the Indian text,
that the Semitic peoples were in origin Hindu outcastes (chandalas). Nietzsche
participates in Jacolliot's project by adding China to the listof countries whose
laws go back toManu.
What was Nietzsche doing learning a lesson fromManu in 1888? Today, even
a cursory reading of Schwab's Renaissance Orientale shows how widely Manu
was known and discussed inEurope from 1794, thedate of SirWilliam Jones's
translation?a work thatwon him a statue in St. Paul's Cathedral inLondon, his
40 David Smith
hand resting on the great tome ofManu?right up to the end of the nineteenth
century.12Itwould be fair to say thatno single text ismore importantforunder
standingHinduism than theLaws ofManu; and of Indian textsprobably only
Kalidasa's play Sakuntala was more widely read in nineteenth-centuryEurope.
Max M?ller had declared decades earlier that, "Instead of the Veda, the
Brahmans of thepresent day read theLaws ofManu."13 No less than four other
European translationswere available at the timeNietzsche read Jacolliot.14
Nietzsche's varied reading about Hinduism and Buddhism would have made
at least thename ofManu and his law book familiar. In 1865 a student at Bonn,
Nietzsche's notes on Schaarschmidt's lecture course on the general history of
philosophy include a reference to theLaws ofManu.15 Koeppen inhis book on
the religion of the Buddha gives detailed references toManu, and discusses
Manu's treatmentof chandalas;16 Nietzsche borrowed Koeppen from the uni
versity library inBasel in 1870. Thomas Brobjer notes thatNietzsche added a
reference toManu to the index of Oldenberg's Buddha, and suggests that this
was done at the timeNietzsche was reading Jacolliot.17However, ifNietzsche
was hoping to find out more about Manu fromOldenberg, he looked in vain.
Unlike Koeppen, Oldenberg has almost nothing to say about theLaws ofManu
or indeed about caste. But almost every book on Indian religion mentioned
Manu. In thewords ofMonier-Williams, professor of Sanskrit atOxford, Manu
was "certainly one of themost remarkable literaryworks that theworld has ever
produced."18 The significance ofManu went beyond specialized Indological
treatises. It is difficult to remember today how fresh and exciting Sanskrit texts
were in nineteenth-centuryEurope. Schopenhauer, who quotes Manu twice in
his Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, refers to itas "the oldest of all the codes
of law."19 Schopenhauer's enthusiasm was widely shared. To take only major
figures in contemporary French writing, the following instancesmay be noted.
Renan, likeNietzsche, a philologist by training?though he never abandoned
philology?refers toManu: four times, for example, in his L'Avenir de la sci
ence.20Another up-to-date and forward-looking writer likeGuyau (1854-88) in
his L'Irr?ligion de l'avenir, a book inNietzsche's library,refers toManu.21 Even
Victor Hugo's novel Notre-dame de Paris (1831) set in theMiddle Ages refers
to theLaws ofManu. For thosewho had eyes to see, who did not refuse to see
India,Manu was everywhere.
Jacolliot's India
In 1985Ann-Marie Etter took a careful look at Jacolliot's translation and showed

how itdeparts from the received textofManu.22 The text Jacolliot was work
ing from is not now available; he claimed that itwas based on the ancient ver
sion of Manu, preserved, as he thought, in southern India. According to
Jacolliot's reading of his version ofManu, the ancient Near East was populated
by outcastes who had freed themselves fromBrahmin domination by emigrat
ing from India. (Hence Nietzsche's view inhis lettertoPeter Gast that the Jews
were "a Chandala race which learns from itsmasters the principles ofmaking
a priestly caste themaster which organizes a people.")23 Etter briefly discussed
Jacolliot's life, quoting the Grande Encyclop?die (Paris, 1885-1902) to the
effect thathe was a judge in theFrench colonies, inPondichery, Chandernagore,
and laterTahiti and that "in his long stay in India [he] collected a quantity of
materials which enabled him topublish some very interestingworks, but in them
romanticism often predominates over scientific truth,so thathe must be con
sidered as a very brilliant vulgarizer rather than a scholar or historian." Etter
refers to two other of Jacolliot's books, Le Spiritisme dans leMonde and
Chrishna et Christna, and correctly dismisses him as an India-fanatic who
thought thateverything inhuman culture and spiritualityhad itsorigin in India.
However, she ismisled by Jacolliot's own claims when she concedes thathe
must have known India well, that he must have been an "Indienkenner."24
Caracostea's valuable archival research published just a year ago has established
that Jacolliot was in India for only twenty-sevenmonths,25 a far cry from the
twenty years' residence recently credited to him by one French Indologist26
Moreover, by only mentioning two other books by Jacolliot, Etter gives a very
inadequate impression of his place in the literaryscene. Jacolliot was even less
authentic than she supposed and at the same timewas farmore prominent.
His publications were numerous, includingmany books of travelwriting and
several novels. His translation of Manu was one of his series of Etudes
Indianistes, comprising some thirteenvolumes, republished as a handsomely
bound complete set,which came to siton the theosophistMadame Blavatsky's
bookshelf. Apart from portions of translations frommodern Tamil plays, and
passages taken fromMax M?ller, his Etudes Indianistes areworthless; however,
they sold well. No less than ten of his travel books describe his experiences in
India and Sri Lanka and several went intomultiple editions. He was eagerly read
by occultists?as theNew Age enthusiasts of theday were called?and also by
the general public. He might be characterized today as a combination of
Dalrymple and Van Danik?n, with an added element of sexual titillation.
Performances by dancing girls and hints of sexual encounters are a constant
backdrop to the travelbooks. There must be some truthunderlying the accounts
of his experiences, but tenbooks about thevery limited period of his stay in the
region,with at least some of his time taken up by official duties as magistrate,
must mean thata considerable partwas played by imagination.
The only novel Jacolliotwrote about India, Le Coureur des Jungles, appeared
the same year thatNietzsche discovered his Manu, 1888.27When it is said of
theFrench hero, the JungleHunter, "What was thedate of his arrival in the land
of the lotus? No one knows,"28 one cannot but be reminded of themysterious
42 David Smith
and concealed length of Jacolliot's stay in India. The novel is set in 1857-58,
after theBritish had brutally put down what theycalled theMutiny. The Jungle
Hunter and his friends,"commissioned by theold Emperor inDelhi... had made
war together again theEnglish."29 For tenyears he had traversed the length and
breadth of India, revolted by the rapacity of theBritish, and thenmanaged to
form,with Nana-Sahib, the vast conspiracy that resulted in thewar against the
invadingBritish. One of theclosing highlights of thenovel has theJungleHunter,
disguised as a fakir,hypnotize Sir JohnLawrence, "placing on thehead of the
Viceroy his two hands charged with magnetic fluid;with his eyes equally pour
ing forthmysterious effluvia against which theViceroy strained vainly to strug
gle." The viceroy ismade to believe himself an outcaste (pariah, or chandala)
and then towalk like a dog. The Hunter loses self-control for a moment, such
is the expenditure ofmagnetic fluid thathe has made to control the otherman.
There was a "sort of counter shock. It is not rare in India to see fakirs gradually
exalt themselves tomadness when they struggle against a subject with a fluidic
force superior to theirown."30 The novel ends with theHunter sailing offwith
Nana Sahib for an unknown destination.
Mysterious powers feature in one of the two other books of Jacolliot referred
to by Etter,Le Spiritisme dans leMonde?1 This work falls into two parts. In the
first, largerpart, he gives an account of life-stages and of various types of yogi
and renouncer,with passing references toan earlier technologically advanced civ
ilization.The second part, often cited by occultists, is theaccount of his exeriences
with a Hindu magician. Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was very
much impressed by thispart of thebook. Jacolliot,Doyle reports, found among
the "native fakirs" "every phenomenon of advanced European mediumship"?
"l?vitation of the body, thehandling of fire,movement of articles at a distance,
rapid growth of plants, raising of tables. Their explanation of these phenomena
was that theywere done by thePitris or spirits,and theironly difference in pro
cedure fromours seemed tobe thattheymade more use of direct evocation. They
claimed that these powers were handed down from time immemorial and traced
back to theChaldees."32 There is evidence thaton his return inParis in 1872, if
not before, Jacolliotwas a spiritualistand went in for table-turning.33
Nietzsche himself once went to a spiritualist s?ance. Beforehand he writes to
K?selitz (2 October 1882), "This evening, a sensational manifestation of spiri
tualism at Leipzig, at the command of the spirits.They affirm that this s?ance
will be very important for thehistory of spiritualism: thata personality will be
invoked?in short, Imust be present at it,and six people await agitatedly what
I will say about it.But the best medium is in an advanced state of pregnancy.
The spiritswill make theirapparition today, for instance the 'Russian nun' and
the 'child'. Two doctors will be present." The next day, he writes that"spiritu
alism is a pitiful deception and, after the firsthalf-hour, boring. And thisProf.
Z?llner has lethimself be cheated by thismedium! Not a word more about it! I
was expecting something else, and I had in advance provided myself with three
fine theories,physiologico-psychologico-moral, but I didn't have touse my the

ories at all."34 Nietzsche's reading in psychology and physiology bore no rela
tion to Jacolliot's murky world.
Etter does not mention Jacolliot's most famous and most significant book,
La Bible dans l'Inde.35 La Bible sets the pattern for the rest of Jacolliot's
Indianist studies.We find an advocate pleading his cause in shorthigh-pitched
paragraphs, harangue that in its repetitions becomes a rant?India is the source
of all civilization. It is true thata major historian,Michelet, was writing only
three years earlier that "primeval India was the original cradle, thematrix of
theworld."36 But Jacolliot sought to bolster his more extreme view by a na?ve
and uncritical reading of Sanskrit texts. Jacolliot elaborates his claim with copi
ous extracts fromManu, sometimes with chapter and verse,more usually with
out. Manu is Jacolliot's core text, and itbore some relation to his duties as a
magistrate. Manu forms the basis for part one of Jacolliot's thesis. Part two is
thatChrist is a reminiscence ofKrishna, on whose life the lifeof Christ isbased;
but this rests on gross forgeries, bearing no relation whatsoever to original
Indian texts.They seem to have been produced to order by a Brahmin to sat
isfy Jacolliot's need; he explicitly says that one particular Brahmin came up
with this information. In addition, there is some direct reportage of aspects of
Indian religion, for themost part from Jacolliot's own experience, but vague
and of littlevalue.
However, thebook seems tohave had considerable success. Itwould be inter
esting to study its reception in some detail. The reviewer of an 1882 counter
blast by a Spanish missionary noted that Jacolliot's book, and another of the
Indianist studies, Les Fils de Dieu, created a sensation when they appeared.
Rationalists and freethinkers viewed it then as giving the deathblow to
Christianity; freemasons thoughthim a great scholar and a profound thinker?
until they actually read the books. However, for the general reader, says the
reviewer, thebooks continue to be poisonous.37
In India, the translation,The Bible inIndia, was warmly received. Dayanand
(1824-83), founder of theArya Samaj, an importantHindu reformmovement,
refers to Jacolliot's book as showing that "all sciences and religions found in
theworld have spread from this country."38The broader scope of Jacolliot's
appeal inEurope is shown by Gladstone's reference to Jacolliot's proposed ety
mologies in one of his studies ofHomer.39 Gladstone's mention of The Bible in
India brings down on him thewrath of John Fiske?"Mr. Gladstone. . .does
not... appear to suspect that it is a disgraceful piece of charlatanry,written by
a man ignorant of the very rudiments of the subject which he professes to
handle."40We may note thatanother of Fiske's books, History of theIntellectual
Development ofEurope inGerman translation,was inNietzsche's library.Fiske
is almost certainly referringtoMax M?ller's attack on Jacolliot.
As Michael Ahlsdorf has pointed out, Nietzsche borrowed from the univer
sity library inBasel in 1875 theGerman translation ofMax M?ller 'sLectures
44 David Smith
on theScience ofReligion (1870/1874), inwhich M?ller demolishes Jacolliot's

claims to scholarship.41M?ller notes that Jacolliot's La Bible dans linde "has
"
lately attracted considerable attention, and declares thatno Sanskrit scholar
"would hesitate for one moment to say that [thepassages cited from the sacred
books of theBrahmans] are forgeries" and thatJacolliot "has been deceived by
his native teacher."42 It is amusing, by theway, to note thatwhat specifically
and especially arouses M?ller's contempt is thatJacolliot attributes to theVeda
thenotion that "woman is the soul of humanity."43 "[I]t is not difficult to see,"
M?ller writes, "that this is the folly of the nineteenth century, and not of the
childhood of the human race." The real forgeries relate to the insertion of the
Jesus story into thePuranas. Only a verse or two of his "original" Manu differs
from the standard textwith regard to the status of women. Jacolliot's summary
of theHindu view of the importance of woman has a core of truth,if taken to
refer to her intrinsic status inHinduism as Shakti, "(divine) power." It is also
worth mentioning thatJacolliot's view here is not novel. For example, inHugo's
novel otre-dame de Paris, decades before Jacolliot, the learned archdeacon de
Josas is found quotingManu in praise of women.44
The elements of Jacolliot's appeal in the past are various. In addition to his
grandiose attempts to establish himself as a historian of thehuman race, his brief
account ofmagical feats in India received considerable attention,most notably
throughhis being quoted byMadame Blavatsky, the founder of theTheosophical
movement. She refers to Jacolliot's books some fiftytimes inher firstmajor pub
lication, Isis Unveiled, though even she refers to him as unreliable. Presumably
because of adverse criticismof The Bible inIndia, references toJacolliot aremuch
reduced in her magnum opus?if thatexpression can be used forhermanner of
composition?The Secret Doctrine. However, Jacolliot's uncritical enthusiasm
for India, his ideas ofAtlantis, and his proclaimed observations of psychic phe
nomena?though the latterplays only a very small part inhis writings?combine
tomake him a major source and even inspiration for the early years of the
Theosophical Society.
In May 1887, when Paul Deussen visited Nietzsche at Sils en route for
Greece, Meta von Salis-Marschlins reports that theirdiscussions included "the
theosophic movement's link to theEastern religions."45 There is an interesting
passing reference in Guyau's Irr?ligion?a copy of which Nietzsche pos
sessed?to theTheosophical Society of theUnited States sending missionar
ies to India in 1879, "or rather counter-missionaries" "to teach themajesty and
glory of all the ancient religions."46 Itwould be interesting to know towhat
extentNietzsche and his interlocutorswere aware of the activities of Blavatsky
and the rest of the current "New Age" of his day. As mentioned above, he took
the trouble to attend a spiritualist s?ance in Leipzig. He makes passing refer
ence in his writings to somnambulism and hypnotism, and to the activities of
Indian fakirs.47
Whether or not Jacolliot's name came up in relation to theosophy or other

aspects of occultism, itcan be proved thatNietzsche had heard of Jacolliot before
he picked up hisManu. Brobjer points out thatNietzsche had read in 1884 an
article in The Atlantic Monthly entitled "Maenadism inReligion," which refers
to Jacolliot: "There was, unfortunately,no Louis Jacolliot in ancient times to
watch unseen the sacred midnight revels, and then give a glowing description
of them to the unilluminated."48 Gilman had already noted thatNietzsche pos
sessed this particular issue of The Atlantic Monthly, and had had an essay of
Emerson's in it translated intoGerman forhim; and of particular relevance here,
he had noted thatNietzsche read thearticle onMaenadism with great care,mak
ing some twenty annotations on each page, in the form of French or German
translations of particular words. Gilman remarks, "The importance of this essay
forNietzsche during themid-eighties is evident. He was returning to the ques
tion of theDiony sian in a manner which alteredmany of his earlier ideas on the
problem. Here he was presented with a succinct summary of the leading views
of ethnologists and historians of religion on this topic."49 Cheek by jowl with
these "leading views" is the reference to Jacolliot.
The writer onMaenadism, who lamented a lack of a Jacolliot in ancient times,
may well have had inmind his account inhis Voyage au pays des perles ofwor
ship of the female principle (shakti-puja) in theNallur Kandaswamy Temple,
Jaffna,Sri Lanka, where he sees, so he says, theworship of thegoddesses degen
erate into an orgy?a more public event than the private parties he usually
describes; and where he compares the participants to bacchantes and satyrs.
Jacolliot tells us thathe spies on proceedings from a secret hiding place. The
three girls representing the goddesses, the temple dancers, and a hundred and
fiftybeautiful young women from the local town, all adorned with flowers, form
an erotic tableau. Ascetics bring in jars of intoxicating liquors. Everyone was
naked. "I don't know how to portray the overwhelming effectproduced on me
by the sight of all these freshyoung women's bodies rising up, in ecstatic poses,
from a bed of rose petals [. . .] and blue lotuses, in themidst of the sculpted
columns and all themarvels of Hindu architecture."At a signal from the chief
priests, all thewomen interlaced theirarms and legs to form a crown around the
threewho represented the goddesses. "Never in his senseless dreams has the
imagination of a smoker of opium conceived anything more bizarre, more
extraordinary,more magnetic, more unnerving. . . than the spectacle of these
waves of human flesh on an ocean of flowers." The Brahmins and theirguests
worship the goddesses. "Dishes of all sorts of food, meats of every kind for
bidden at ordinary timeswere brought in,heaped high." After offerings to the
goddesses "themen and women jumped up and threw themselves pell-mell on
the food and drinkwhich theyheld to be consecrated, vying with each other to
eat and drink themost." At the signal of a firework, the threeBrahmin priests
"publicly perform thedeed of generation with the threeyoung women who rep
46 David Smith
resent theGoddesses." At once the threehundred men and women deliriously

throw themselves upon each other "like two troops of rutting tigerswho have
.
justmet in the jungle. [. .] and when these bacchantes and these satyrs reach
the last degree of exaltation, theywill no longer even distinguish between the
sexes. Itwill be understood thatImust stop here in painting these shocking cus
tomswhich still today soil the religious mysteries of India, mysteries that this
"50
country transportedby emigration through the entire ancient world.
Jacolliot eats his cake with one hand and throws it away with the other.He
delights in alluding to his own sexual encounters, and at the same time is hor
rified by an orgy sanctified by religion. In all his books he praises ancient
Hinduism and scorns modern Hinduism. Indeed, Jacolliot's primal Hinduism
bears a strikingresemblance toChristianity, being monotheist and free from the
divisions of caste, free too fromBrahmins. It is difficult to say whether or not
the description he gives here is fabricated, thoughwith Jacolliot fabrication is
always likely.He almost certainly has inmind literarydescriptions and con
temporarypaintings of ancient Greece and Rome as parallels, but thiswould be
the case whether or not he made up his description.
Nietzsche's Knowledge of Indian Literature
Nietzsche had no interest in supposedly direct firsthand accounts of Dionysiac

or any other kind of experience of India, but he was interested in thehierarchi
cal structureof society and inasceticism. Michel Hulin refers toNietzsche's "pas
sionate and highly selective reading of the Laws of Manu"; Nietzsche is
"fascinated by thehistorical success of theBrahmanic caste, which he imagines
tohave ruled over Indian society formillenia."51 But as Brobjer shows,Manu by
no means representsNietzsche's political ideal.Manu, like theRoman Empire,
represents stability,but Nietzsche's full approval is reserved for the affirmative
and creative values of theRenaissance and ancient Hellas.52 My aim here is to
show that itwas surprising thathe was so takenby a book so obviously unschol
arly; and surprisingalso thathe had not heard of Jacolliot's otherworks. The key
conclusion here fromManu is thatNietzsche's knowledge of the scholarly and
thepopular literatureon Hinduism must have been remarkably slight.
This seems to thecase as well with other preeminent Hindu texts.SirWilliam
Jones did not translate only theLaws ofManu; he also translatedKalidasa's
ancient Sanskrit play Sakuntala, a work that took educated Europe by storm,
and was praised by Goethe, themost famous literary figure in Europe. But
Nietzsche had not read this play until itwas shown to him byMeysenbug in
1877. And thenhe did not like it.53Itmay furtherbe noted that Wilamowitz in
his review of The Birth of Tragedy remarks upon the absence of any reference
to Sakuntala.54 Nietzsche's position on thismatter can perhaps be justified as a
matter of personal taste, but for the author of The Birth of Tragedy to be igno
rantofwhat was first thought to be the oldest of all dramatic forms,which had
swept across Europe in various translations, surely shows amind closed to dra
matic art inwider dimensions as well as closed to India.
This impression is confirmedwhen we look at other popular Indian texts,pop
ular, that is, inEurope at the time.The oldest Sanskrit texts, and themost ven
erated, are the Vedic hymns. The one significant use of a Vedic hymn by
Nietzsche is themotto forDaybreak,55 and the titleofDaybreak itself,but this
was the suggestion ofHeinrich K?selitz (PeterGast).56 Nevertheless, thepromi
nent position of theVedic quotation is emphasized by the reference to India in
almost the lastwords of the book. The only other reference to a Vedic hymn, as
distinct from theUpanishads and theVedanta, and as distinct fromnotebook ref
erences to theVedas inManu, is the copying out in a notebook of a verse from
the famous creation verse Rig-Veda X 129, one of a series of extracts from a
volume ofMax Muller's essays. Nietzsche's claim inEcce Homo that thepoets
of theVeda are priests and are not worthy to loose Zarathustra's sandals (EH
Z6),57 would seem to be based on almost total ignorance of theVedic hymns,
ignorance thatwould be reprehensible were he still a philologist. To thismight
be contrasted a remark of Renan in his L'Avenir de la science?a remark that
might have been at theback ofNietzsche's mind?that there ismuch tobe done
before Sanskrit isperfectlyunderstood, and thatitmight be regrettedthata "quite
big volume had been written on the sandals of theHebrews before theVedas
had found an editor."58Nietzsche's boast is in fact an accurate reflection of his
general relationship with Hinduism, namely, thathis own views and creations
are superior toHinduism, a relationship discussed below in respect to the?ber
mensch and eternal return.
Another major textNietzsche might have been expected to know was the
Ramayana. Johann Figi claims thatNietzsche's interest in Indian ideas goes
back to his schooldays at Pforta and discovers a reference to fate in relation to
the Indian epics in the draft of an essay on theNibelungen Song: "Such a pro
found conception of fate shines out?even ifvisible toonly the sharperof sight?
from those folk poems inwhich the spiritual and emotional world of a whole
nation comes to light in primordial magnificence and purity, in the Iliad and
Odyssey, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, in the Nibelungen and Gudrun"
( AW 2, 445 Nachbericht). Figi claims that thatcontemporary scholarship on
India was "taken account of at Pforta."59 But themere mention of the titles of
the two Indian epics by Nietzsche means little.While it is true thatNietzsche
does not saymuch about any of his reading in his published works, there is no
reason to suppose that Indian poetry was of any interest to him at all, a view
confirmed by his antipathy to Sakuntala.
All the same, theRamayana was well known inEurope. Consider Michelet's
La Bible de l'humanit?, a work thathas been suggested as a possible source of
48 David Smith
the distinction Nietzsche makes between Apollo and Dionysos, and thatmay
have been introduced toNietzsche by Meysenbug, who had met Michelet.60
Michelet's popular work begins with a lyrical evocation of theRamayana: "a
Colossus, five hundred times higher than thePyramids?the gigantic flower of
India?the divine Ramayana";61 a comparison that surpasses Michelet's com
ments in the Le Peuple?a book of his thatNietzsche possessed in German
translation?"the Ramayana, theMahabharata, gigantic pyramids in frontof
which all our little
Western works should be humble and respectful."62Michelet
proclaimed the death of God but wanted to replace Christianity by a new reli
gion of thepeople, and Nietzsche had little sympathy forhis view: "Everything
that pleases me is foreign to him."63 For Michelet, the high point of the
Ramayana isRama embracing hismonkey companion-devotee, Hanuman, see
inghere the reverse of the caste system in thebrotherhood of beings. This read
ing overlooks the significant incident, notorious today among theDalits, as
Nietzsche's chandalas are now called: Rama ordering the immediate death of a
low-caste man who has the temerityto become an ascetic; but at leastMichelet
took the trouble to read the epic.
Nietzsche, however, does twice refer to a famous storybest known from its
version in the Ramayana, namely, what Salom? called "the Vedic story of
Visvamitra," thatas she says, exemplifies themutual dependence inNietzsche's
thought of "relentless suffering and self-deification."64Marco Brusotti has
shown thatNietzsche's phrasing and consequently his knowledge of the story
comes fromhis formerpupil JacobWackernagel's essay on Brahmanism.65 This
lively and significant storycomes in thefirstbook of theRamayana, and would
be encountered early in reading the Ramayana, if one actually read the
Ramayana. The magical powers of ascetics are vividly described; by dint of his
ascetic prowess theking Visvamitra becomes a rishi, and creates a new heaven
forhis prot?g?, a king whom his rival's sons had made a chandala.
The same source,Wackernagel's essay, lies behind a passage inDaybreak:
"For those Brahmins believed, firstly that the priests were more powerful than
the gods, and secondly that thepower of thepriests resided in the observances:
which iswhy theirpoets never wearied of celebrating theobservances (prayers,
ceremonies, sacrifices, hymns, verses) as the real givers of all good things."
Nietzsche takes this superiority ofmen over gods as a goal to be imitated: "let
us firstof all see to it thatEurope overtakes what was done several thousands
of years ago in India, among thenation of thinkers, in accordance with the com
mandments of reason!" (D, 96). One of the several verses he copies from
Jacolliot that are not in the received text ofManu is the following: "Where is
the god who would be capable ofwithstanding the solemnity and prayers of the
ascetic iyati) who has withdrawn into the forest?" (KSA 13:14[198]). But
Nietzschedoes not meet such figures as Visvamitra in the context of the
Ramayana in theirfull literaryenvironment.
Indian Anticipations of Nietzschean Concepts
We now come towhat has always been supposed tobe the source ofNietzsche's
strongestconnection with Hinduism and India, his friendshipwith Paul Deussen,
thegreat European expert on theVedanta. Deussen gave Nietzsche copies of his
two books on the Vedanta, Das System des Vedanta and his translation of
Sankara's commentary on the Brahmasutras. Certainly Nietzsche looked
throughDas System des Vedanta, much themore accessible of the two, but in
factwas not in the least disposed to carry out the careful study thatwould be
necessary to properly understand its rich contents. In On the Genealogy of
Morals, he refers to theUpanishadic notion of oneness with Brahman in deep
sleep, and refers toDeussen's translationof Sankara's commentary, but is happy
tomove on tohome ground with Epicurus at the end of the section (GM III. 17).
Salom? declared that itwas impossible to ignore the influence of Das System
des Vedanta upon Nietzsche's own writings from 1883: "one is tempted towrite
explanatory notes in themargin?'atman' and 'Brahman. "'66 But itdid not occur
toNietzsche to use those terms.
If all the foregoing discussion has sought to downplay Nietzsche's knowl
edge ofHinduism, nevertheless, the two teachings towhich Nietzsche laid spe
cial claim, the?bermensch and the eternal returnboth stand in a peculiar and
remarkable relationship toHinduism and Buddhism. Such at leastmust be the
conclusion of anyone familiar with those religions. In his reminiscences of
Nietzsche, Deussen subjects his friend's twin ideas to stringentcritique. "If one
claims that the next period that theworld will go throughwill take exactly the
same course in the least details as in thepresent period, thatis an opinion
entirely
deprived of any basis. In essentials the process will remain the same, but the
modalities will be unceasingly new." He deftly knocks Nietzsche's idea on the
head: threebilliard balls, each with its surfacemade up of an infinitenumber of
points, never exactly reproduce the same mutual positions, and "likewise the
game of theevolution of theworld will have infinitevariations."67 Eternal return
is physically and logically impossible.
Deussen also gives the notion of the?bermensch short shrift."From 1873
Nietzsche was saying tome thathis goal was not thenegation of thewill but its
ennoblement and, already at thatperiod, I replied to him thatone could not yet
understand thenegation of thewill, ifone did not see in it thegreatest ennoble
ment." For classical antiquity and formany inmodern times, saysDeussen, "the
highest task ofmorality consists indeciding theways andmeans which lead the
most surely to happiness." This Deussen calls "the pagan
group." It was the
Vedanta that headed the other group, which also includes Platonism,
Christianity, and thephilosophy ofKant and Schopenhauer. When theVeda says
one should liberate oneself from the illusion of
individuality and recognize that
one is theatman, it is saying exactly "the same thing thatNietzsche wants: that
50 David Smith
theman in us be surmounted, in order that the ?bermensch may appear."68

Nietzsche's notions of the?bermensch and theeternal returnhave been minutely
examined bymany scholars and interpreted in numerous and diverse ways. My
point here is simply that to use them theway he did shows Nietzsche to have
been oblivious of the obvious Indian parallels.
Brandes in 1889 suggested that the?bermensch was a more dogmatic ver
sion of the scientificworld rulers thatRenan had postulated in his Dialogues
Philosophiques, a book thatNietzsche possessed.69 Renan finds itnatural touse
the Sanskrit word for god, deva, in respect of his oligarchical brain-only super
men. Renan has been described as "a kind of companionable, drawing-room
Nietzsche,"70 butNietzsche sees him as his antipodes?though of course Renan
is not the only antipodes forNietzsche. Renan sought "to exorcize the void left
by the death of God" with the religion of science.71 His view of a futuredeity
as theworld reduced to a single super-entity,which absorbs all life into itsburn
ing throat in a river of pleasure which again flows out in a torrentof life,was
once described by Lionel Gossman as "a fantasy ofGod only slightly less obvi
ous than thefantasies of today's porno culture."72Gossman was writing in 1982,
before the Internet and the novels ofWilliam Gibson. He was, however, writ
ing long after the theophany of theBhagavad Gita, where Krishna showsArjuna
his trueform (modeled on Siva), swallowing up thewhole universe intohis gap
ingmouth. Renan's vision also encapsulates the idea of Siva limitlessly pour
ing forth theworld fromhimself.
As Hulin has pointed out,73 Schopenhauer gives a striking anticipation of
Nietzsche's notion of the?bermensch by postulating a man "who found satis
faction in life and took perfect delight in it;who desired, in spite of calm deliber
ation, that the course of his life as he had hitherto experienced it should be of
endless duration or of constant recurrence.. .whose courage to face lifewas so
great that,in returnfor life's pleasures, he would willingly and gladly put up with
all the hardships and miseries to which it is subject." But even better for
Schopenhauer?as later forDeussen?would be theman who understood the
truthsof theUpanishads. For him, death would be an impotent specter.He "knows
thathe himself is thatwill ofwhich thewhole world is theobjectification or copy,
towhich thereforelife and also thepresent always remains certain and sure.The
present is the only real form of thewill. Therefore no endless past or future in
which he will not exist can frightenhim, forhe regards these as an emptymirage
and theweb ofMaya." Schopenhauer then declares that in theBhagavad Gita
"Krishna puts his young pupil Arjuna in thisposition."74What Schopenhauer does
not specifically refer to is themagnificent and overwhelming theophany towhich
Arjuna is treated.Nietzsche too ignores this; he ignores the Bhagavad Gita
entirely,75he ignores Sanskrit literature,forhe makes his own way.
Schopenhauer makes an intriguing reference to Siva in conjunction with
Dionysos in thefirstvolume ofDie Welt als Wille und Vorstellung:
Birth and death belong equally to life. [. . .]The wisest of allmythologies, the
Indian,expresses thisby giving to theverygodwho symbolizesdestructionand
death [. ..] to Shiva as an attributenot only thenecklace of skulls,but also the
Ungarn, that symbol of generation which appears as the counterpart of death. [...]
Itwas precisely the same sentimentthatprompted theGreeks and Romans to
adorn the costly sacrophagi, just as we still see them, with feasts, dances, mar
riages, hunts,fightsbetweenwild beasts, bacchan?lia, thatiswith presentations

of life'smost powerfulurge.This theypresenttous not only throughsuchdiver
sions and merriments, but even in sensual groups, to the point of showing us the
sexual intercourse between satyrs and goats.
The classical artists, like the creators of Hindu mythology, wanted to show that
"thewhole of nature is the [...] fulfilmentof thewill to live."76Perhaps, ifNietzsche
had been given a book he requested forhis seventeenthbirthday?Wollheim da
Fonseca's Mythologie des altes Indien?he might have gone on tomake some use
of what Schopenhauer called the "wisest mythology."77 Nietzsche's many refer
ences to dance in Thus Spoke Zarathustra have oftenmade subsequent readers
thinkofDancing Siva, andWollheim makes some reference to Siva as dancer, as
Natesvara, lord of dancers, but in fact thatform of Siva was almost completely
ignored in theWest untilCoomaraswamy's essay "The Dance of Siva" was pub
lished in 1914.78 Itwas necessary forpeople to see at least photographs of Chola
bronzes forDancing Siva to be properly appreciated outside India. But not only
does Siva resemble Zarathustra in some respects, but there are several points of
convergence between Siva and Nietzsche/Dionysos/Zarathustra. Siva, the arche
typeof the Indian wandering ascetic, ceaselessly walks across India, Siva whose
home is theHimalayas, the snowmountains, Siva theyogi, Siva theascetic whose
magic power creates theworld. Siva as ithyphallic, thewild dancer, resembles
Dionysos, Dionysos, who came, as Nietzsche says, from India (BT, 20).
Schopenhauer makes the linkbetween Siva and bacchan?lia quoted above not on
thebasis of historical claims inGreek textsbut on structuralgrounds, on a paral
lel duality of love and death in the two gods.
Nietzsche's India
Will itperhaps be said of us one day thatwe too, steeringwestward, hoped to

reach an India?but thatitwas our fate tobe wrecked against infinity?Or,my
brothers. Or??
?Daybreak, 575
India forNietzsche is the land ofHindus. He shows little awareness that itwas
underMuslim rule for several centuries. Other thanwords based on "brahman,"
his usual term forHindu is "Inder" or "indisch." Only a handful of times does
Nietzsche use theword "Hindu."79 Nevertheless, India for him is the land of
52 David Smith
Hindus alone, not of Hindus andMuslims. At the same time, it is noteworthy

thatNietzsche refers to almost none of the common stereotypes of India, other
than the incapacitating nature of theheat. He does not refer,for instance, todevo
tees throwing themselves under thewheels of theJagannath car, or the suicide
of widows on theirhusbands' funeral pyres, as do almost all Europeans who
write even briefly about Hinduism, for example, Schopenhauer inDie Welt als
Wille und Vorstellung and Renan inL'Avenir de la science.80
How much did Nietzche know of the real geography and culture of India?81
One view of India thatNietzsche would have had was on stage, in opera. In
Delibes's Lakm?, which Nietzsche saw inNice in thewinter of 1887-88, priests
bring out ten-armedDurga from the temple in a palanquin, while theHindus
sing that thegoddess is "golden in colour," the spiritof theGanges "who makes
everything change."82 This procession is the backdrop for the chief priest's
attemptedmurder ofGerald. And apparently therewas forNietzsche something
Indian?something Hindu?about Bizet's Carmen, which he went to somany
times, since he says at the beginning ofDer Fall Wagner, "each time that I've
heard Carmen, I have feltmyself more of a philosopher, a better philosopher
than I usually feel: made so indulgent, so happy, so Hindu (so indisch)" (CW,
1).Was it the dance of Carmen that reminded him of India? But the dance of
Carmen is, as he says,Moorish, and he never hints at anything resembling the
India of dancing girls beloved of Jacolliot; norwas the Indian origin of thegyp
sies thenwidely known. It is remarkable thatNietzsche speaks of himself here
as Hindu (indisch), for thecontext inwhich he does so is revelatory of theempti
ness of his understanding of Hinduism, of its self-referentiality.83
Experience of India forNietzsche?Nietzsche's India?was, I suggest, the
other India forwhich he set sail at the end of Daybreak, and where perhaps he
was shipwrecked; an India where no one lived but Nietzsche, thatwas not the
real India or any known land. In reality, going to India never crossed his mind.
Far fromgoing to India, even metaphorically, he could not even get toParis, the
cosmopolis of his dreams, the capital of thenineteenth century. Strange thathe
could call his writings travel-books; theywere written for himself alone?at
least that iswhat he suggests inhis 1886 preface to the second volume ofHuman,
All Too Human (HH II, P6). Rohde says of his lastmeeting with Nietzsche, in
the spring of 1886, thathe had a new look, "As ifhe came from a countrywhere
nobody else lived,"84 but was that really a new look? Perhaps his visit to
Jacolliot's India was en route to a differentcontinent altogether.
Department ofReligious Studies

Lancaster University
Notes
1. The most valuable treatment of this topic is still that ofMervyn Sprung. Sprung's paper has
been published twice: originally as "Nietzsche's Interest in and Knowledge of Indian Thought,"
inDavid Goicoechea, ed., The Great Year of Zarathustra (1881-1981) (Lanham, Md.: University
Press of America, 1984); and, with an additional paragraph, "Nietzsche's Trans-European Eye,"
in Graham Parkes, ed., Nietzsche and Asian Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1991). Sprung concludes that "ideas from India penetrated Nietzsche as little as drops of water
penetrate a goose's feathers" (1984, p. 177).
2. The Laws of Manu [Manavadharmasastra or Manusmrti] is a Sanskrit text composed
around 200 b.c., informally known as Manu, which is how I shall generally refer to it in the text.
3. Louis Jacolliot, Les L?gislateurs religieux: Manou-Moise-Mahomet (Paris: A. Lacroix,
1876). Symptomatic of Jacolliot's inherent unreliability is the inaccuracy of title of the book: the
contents refer only toManu, notMoses orMuhammad. Similar inaccuracies can be found in some
of his other book titles.
4. Roger Scruton, "Continental Philosophy from Fichte to Sartre," inAnthony Kenny, ed., The
Oxford History ofWestern Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 232.
5. Marcel Conche, Nietzsche et le bouddhisme (Foug?res: Encre Marin, 1997), 17.
6. Friedrich Nietzsche, Antichrist, section 20, trans. Walter Kaufmann, in The Portable
Nietzsche (New York: Viking Press, 1954). Nietzsche's works will henceforth be cited in the text
by abbreviation of the title (in English), followed by subdivision (if applicable) and section
number. I rely chiefly onWalter Kaufmann's translations forViking Press/Random House and R.
J. Hollingdale's translations for Cambridge University Press. Unpublished notes and fragments
from theNachla? are cited as KSA?i.e., S?mtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe, 15 vols., ed.
Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1988)?followed by appropriate
volume, notebook, and note numbers.
7. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will toPower, trans.Walter Kaufmann and R. J.Hollingdale (New
York: Random House, 1967).
8. The Laws ofManu, with introduction and notes, trans.Wendy Doniger with Brian K. Smith
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991), xx.
9. "Dans l'?tat actuel de la litt?rature sanskrite, en effet, la publication et la traduction des
textes vaut mieux que toutes les dissertations possibles, soit sur l'histoire de l'Inde, soit sur
l'authenticit? et l'int?grit? des ouvrages," L'Avenir de la science (Paris: Calmann-L?vy, 1910),
245.
10. Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1982).
11. Christopher Middleton, ed. and trans., Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996), 297-98.
12. Raymond Schwab, La Renaissance Orientale (Paris: Payot, 1950).
13. F. Max M?ller, Chips from a German Workshop, 2d ed. (London: Longmans, Green,
1880), 2:308.
14. SirWilliam Jones, Institutes ofHindu Law, or the Ordinances ofMenu (Calcutta, 1794);
J. C. H?ttner, Hindu Gesetzbuch: oder, Menu's Verordnungen (Weimar 1797)?a translation of
Jones; A. Loizeleur-Deslongchamps, Lois de Manou (Paris, 1833); and G. B?hler, The Laws of
Manu (Oxford, 1886). Brobjer has shown what a keen reader Nietzsche remained despite the
problem with his eyes, making full use of libraries, even checking out the size of the library before
he visited a town; frequenting bookshops, and borrowing books from friends. Thomas Brobjer,
"Nietzsche's Reading and Private Library," Journal of the History of Ideas 58, no. 4 (1997):
663-93. See also Brobjer's article in this issue, "Nietzsche's Reading About Eastern Philosophy."
Nietzsche's nomadic lifewas not in itself a bar to knowledge of Hinduism and India.
15. Johann Figi, "Nietzsche's Early Encounters with Asian Thought," in Parkes, ed., 59.
16. Carl Friedrich Koeppen, Die Religion des Buddha und ihreEntstehung (Berlin: Ferdinand
Schneider, 1857), 1:39-54.
17. Thomas Brobjer, "The Absence of Political Ideals in Nietzsche's Writings: The Case of
The Laws ofManu and theAssociated Caste-Society," Nietzsche-Studien 27 (1998): 300-318.
54 David Smith
18. Sir Monier Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism: or Religious Thought and Life
in India (London: JohnMurray, 1887), 51.
19. Arthur Schopenhauer, World as Will and Representation, trans. E. E J. Payne (New York:
Dover, 1969), 1:336.
20. Renan, Avenir, 59, 148 (twice), 232.
21. Jean-Marie Guyau, L'Irr?ligion de l'avenir: ?tude sociologique (Paris: F?lix Alean, 1887),
267.
22. Annemarie Etter, "Nietzsche und das Gesetzbuch des Manu," Nietzsche-Studien 16 (1987):
340-52.
23. For detailed discussion, see Bruce Lincoln, Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and
Scholarship (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 107-10.

24. Etter, "Nietzsche und das Gesetzbuch des Manu," 345.
25. Daniel Caracostea,"Louis-Fran?ois Jacolliot (1837-1890): A Biographical Essay,"
Theosophical History 9, no. 1 (January 2003): 12-39. In outline, as established by Caracostea,
Jacolliot's life was as follows. Born in Charolles in 1837, son of a legal functionary, he studied
law and practiced as a lawyer in Saint-Etienne. But after three years of this, in 1864, complaining
of susceptibility to a sore throat, he applied for a French colonial magistracy. He was appointed
deputy-judge in Pondicherry and arrived there inDecember 1865. In June the following year, he
was promoted to Imperial Prosecutor, and two months later to Imperial Judge in Chandernagor.
He was in Chandernagor just over four months, before resigning on account of ill health. He left
India on March 9,1868, never to return.His stay in India lasted twenty-seven months. After some
months in Tahiti he remained in France, giving lectures in Paris from 1873 to 1885, as police
records show, supplementing the income from his writings. In 1887 he was elected mayor in the
village of Saint-Thibault-des-Vignes, east of Paris, and remained in office until his death on
October 30, 1890.
26. Catherine Champion, "L'image de l'Inde dans la fiction populaire fran?aise aux XIXe et
Xxe si?cles," inDenys Lombard, ed., R?ver l'Asie (Paris: ?H?SS, 1993), 54.
27. Louis Jacolliot, Le Coureur des Jungles (Paris: Marpon et Flammarion, 1888). First
published serially.
28. Le Coureur des Jungles, 4.
29. Ibid., 19.
30. Ibid., 607.
leMonde. L'Initiation et les sciences occultes dans l'Inde et chez tous
31. Le Spiritisme dans
les peuplesde l'antiquit? avec un aper?u du spiritisme et du magn?tisme au moyen ?ge et jusqu'?
nos jours (Paris: Lacroix, 1875). Translated into English byWillard L. Felt as Occult-science in
India and among the ancients, with an account of their mystic initiations and the history of
spiritism (London and New York, 1884).

32. Arthur Conan Doyle, The New Revelation (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1918), 23.
33. Caracostea, "Louis-Fran?ois Jacolliot (1837-1890)," 21.
34. Nietzsche, Lettres ? Peter Gast, trans. Louize Servic?n (Monaco: Editions du Rocher,
1957), 2:114-15.
35. La Bible dans l'Inde, vie de Iezeus Christna (Paris: Lacroix, 1869). Many reprints.
Translated into English as The Bible in India: Hindoo Origin ofHebrew and Christian Revelation
(London, 1870). Several reprints.

36. Jules Michelet, The Bible of Humanity, translated from the French by Vincenzo Caifa
(New York: J.W. Bouton, 1877), 8.
37. Comte de Charencey, review of Pedro Guai, A India Christan, ou Cartas b?blicas contra
los livros de Luis Jacolliot, translated from Spanish into Portuguese by J.Pinto de Campos (1882),
Revue des questions historiques, 1888, 310-12.
38. Satyarth Prakash, 333.
39.William Ewart Gladstone, JuventusMundi: The Gods and Men of theHeroic Age (London:
Macmillan, 1869), 343.
40. John Fiske, (1872) Myths and Myth-makers: Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by
Comparative Mythology (Boston and New York: Fiske Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1900),
205-6.
41. Michael Ahlsdorf, Nietzsches Juden, diss. Berlin 1990, cited by Andreas Urs Sommer,
Friedrich Nietzsches"Der Antichrist": Ein philsophisch-historischer Kommentar (Basel:
Schwabe, 2000), 563.
42. LittelVs Living Age, no. 1366, August 6, 1870, p. 329. (I quote from the form of the text
available tome.) However, most of the references Jacolliot makes toManu are correct; it is the
references to theKrishna Christ story that are forgeries.
43. "La femme c'est l'?me de l'humanit?," La Bible dans l'Inde, 242.
44. Victor Hugo, Notre-dame de Paris (Paris: J.Hetzel, 1880), 425.
45. Gilman, Conversations with Nietzsche, 195;Meta von Salis-Marschlins, May 1887ff., 200.
46. Guy au, L'Irr?ligion de l'avenir, 301.
47. GM III.21, KSA 12:10[155]; GM 1.6 andffl.17, EH "Wise," 6, KSA 13:14[102].
48. The Atlantic Monthly, October 1884, 498; Brobjer, "The Absence of Political Ideals in
Nietzsche'sWriting."
49. Sander L. Gilman, "Nietzsche's Reading on the Dionysian: From Nietzsche's Library,"
Nietzsche-Studien 6 (1977): 293-94.
50. L. Jacolliot, Voyage au pays des perles, 5th ed. (Paris: Dentu, 1879), 187-90.
51. Michel Hulin, "Nietzsche and the Suffering of the Indian Ascetic," in Parkes, ed., 69.
52. Brobjer, "The Absence of Political Ideals inNietzsche's Writings."
53. Sprung's comment is important: "Nietzsche read it and his subsequent comments, as
recounted by Meysenbug, are, for myself, the single most revealing episode in the entire
documentary evidence available to us concerning his stance in matters of European and
transeuropean philosophy and culture" ("Nietzsche's Trans-European Eye," 86).

54. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-M?llendorff, Zukunfstphilologie (Berlin: Borntraeger, 1872),
trans. H?l?ne Poitevin inMich?le Cohen-Halimi, ed., Querelle autour de "La Naissance de la
Trag?die" (Paris: Vrin, 1995), 95.

55. It is not clear which verse of the Rig-Veda the line is taken from.
56. See editors' notes, KSA 14, p. 203.
57. "[D]ie Dichter des Veda Priester sind und nicht einmal w?rdig, die Schuhsohlen eines
Zarathustra zu l?sen" (KSA 6, p. 343).
58. Renan refers toAnthony Bynaeus (1654-98), De calc?is Hebr?orum libri duo (Dordraci:
Ex officina vidu? Caspari, & Theodori Goris, mdc lxxxii)?well over 400 pages in the
duodecimo edition.
59. Figi, "Nietzsche's Early Encounters with Asian Thought," in Parkes, ed., 53-54. He refers
to theZ.D.M.G., and books by Lassen and Albrecht Weber.
60. J.Michelet, La Bible de l'humanit? (Paris: F. Chamerot, 1864); H. Wagenvoort, "Die
Entstehung von Nietzsche's Geburt der Trag?die," Mnemosyne 12 (Leiden, 1959), cited by Curt
Paul Janz: Friedrich Nietzsche. Biographie (Munich: Hanser, 1993), 1:431.
61. JulesMichelet, The Bible of Humanity, trans. Vincenzo Caifa (New York: J.W. Bouton,
1877), 7.
62. JulesMichelet, Le peuple (Paris: Hachette et Paulin, 1846), 229.
63.KSA 11:26[403].
64. Lou Salom?, Nietzsche, translated from the German and edited by Siegfried Mandel
(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 25.

65. Marco Brusotti, "Opfer und Macht: zu Nietzsches Lekt?re von JacobWackernagels '?ber
den Ursprung des Brahmanismus,'" Nietzsche Studien 22 (1993): 222-42.
56 David Smith
66. Salom?, Nietzsche, 144.

67. Paul Deussen, Souvenirs sur Friedrich Nietzsche, trans.
Jean-Fran?ois (Paris: Gallimard,
2002) (Erinnerungen an Friedrich Nietzsche [Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1901]), 172.
68. Deussen, Souvenirs sur Friedrich Nietzsche, 173-78.
69. Gary Shapiro, "Nietzsche contra Renan," History and Theory 21, no. 2 (1982): 193-222,
referring to Brandes's pamphlet "Friedrich Nietzsche: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism,"

36-37. In 1904 Jean Bourdeau declared, "le d?va de Renan, c'est ?bermensch de Nietzsche," in
Les Ma?tres de la pens?e
contemporaine (Paris: Alean, 1904), 129. For Renan's speculations about
the future development through science of some of mankind into d?vas, see Dialogues
Philosophiques, in H. Psichari, ed., Oeuvres compl?tes de Ernest Renan (Paris: Calmann-L?vy,

1947), 1:616-18; see also Guiliano Campioni, Les Lectures Fran?aises de Nietzsche, translated
from the Italian by Christel Lavigne Mouilleron (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001),
51-108.
70. Lionel Gossman, review of Harold W. Wardman, Renan: Historien, Philosophe, History
and Theory, 21, no. 1 (1982): 106-24, at 107.
71. Campioni, Les Lectures Fran?aises de Nietzsche, 202.
72. Gossman, review ofWardman, 123.
73. M. Hulin, "Schopenhauer et la mort-renaissance," in Roger-Pol Droit, Pr?sences de
Schopenhauer (Paris: Grasset, 1989), 13.
74. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, 1:283-84.
75. Brobjer notes in his piece in this issue thatNietzsche made a marginal line beside the
passage just mentioned in Schopenhauer (Brobjer, "Nietzsche's Reading About Eastern

Philosophy"). But the impact of the passage on Nietzsche, I believe, was very transitory.
76. World as Will and Representation, 1:276.
77. Ibid., 1:275. Nietzsche's request is referred to by Figi, "Nietzsche's Early Encounters with
Asian Thought," 52. Figi also mentions thatNietzsche requested at the same time Feuerbach's
Essence of Christianity and Thoughts on Death and Immortality. Note, in passing, that the former
work mentions with approval the Laws of Manu; the latter closes with a strange epigram about
Maya driving away the depression of Brahma (last epigram but two).
78. Wollheim gives a brief but interesting account of Siva's wild tandava dance, and tries to
find an etymological link between tandava and tanzen: A. E. Wollheim da Fonseca, Mythologie
des alten Indien (Berlin: Gustav Hempel, 1857), 78-79.
79.KSA 13:11[245],11[255],and 14[190].
80. Renan in L'Avenir de science mentions
Jagannath twice, pp. 87 and 489; sati, p. 489. In
the notebook where he makes excerpts fromM?ller 's essays, Nietzsche refrains from transcribing
details of Jagannath and sati even where they are contiguous to the sections that he does choose.
81. For instance, inDer Gottesdienst der Griechen, Nietzsche puts Sanchi, the great Buddhist
site in central India, in Central Asia. Nietzsche, Le Service Divin des Grecs, trans. Emmanuel
Carrin (Paris: L'Herne, 1992), 66.
82. Leo Delibes, Lakm?, act 2, scene 10.
83. Cf. Nietzsche'suse of the term "Buddhist." Marcel Conche begins his book on Nietzsche
and Buddhism by noting two instances of the term "Buddhist" being favorably applied to
Europeans: R?e spoke of Lou Salom? toOldenberg in 1882 as a "great Buddhist"; and Nietzsche
in 1888 describes to Peter Gast a publisher keen to help him as "a Buddhist." Conche, Nietzsche
et le bouddhisme, 14-15. As Brobjer notes at the beginning of his essay, "Nietzsche's Reading
About Eastern Philosophy," Nietzsche in a letter to Cosima Wagner claimed to be himself the
Buddha.
84. Letter of January 24, 1889, quoted by Mazzino Montinari, Friedrich Nietzsche, trans.
Paolo D'Iorio (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001), 105.

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Nietzsche's Hinduism, Nietzsche's India: Another Look

Author(s): David Smith

You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

his essay attempts a provocative overview ofNietzsche's relationship with

Nietzsche, Jacolliot, and Manu

InNietzsche's day therewas considerable academic and popular interestin India

Journal ofNietzsche Studies, Issue 28, 2004

Copyright ?2004 The Friedrich Nietzsche Society.

isbizarre tojuxtapose Nietzsche with Jacolliot, thenow immensely famous intel

I owe to these lastweeks a very importantlesson: I foundManu's book of laws

merely transmitters?they invent nothing.11

In 1985Ann-Marie Etter took a careful look at Jacolliot's translation and showed

fine theories,physiologico-psychologico-moral, but I didn't have touse my the

on theScience ofReligion (1870/1874), inwhich M?ller demolishes Jacolliot's

Whether or not Jacolliot's name came up in relation to theosophy or other

resent theGoddesses." At once the threehundred men and women deliriously

Nietzsche's Knowledge of Indian Literature

Nietzsche had no interest in supposedly direct firsthand accounts of Dionysiac

Indian Anticipations of Nietzschean Concepts

theman in us be surmounted, in order that the ?bermensch may appear."68

riages, hunts,fightsbetweenwild beasts, bacchan?lia, thatiswith presentations

Will itperhaps be said of us one day thatwe too, steeringwestward, hoped to

Hindus alone, not of Hindus andMuslims. At the same time, it is noteworthy

Department ofReligious Studies

Scholarship (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 107-10.

spiritism (London and New York, 1884).

(London, 1870). Several reprints.

transeuropean philosophy and culture" ("Nietzsche's Trans-European Eye," 86).

Trag?die" (Paris: Vrin, 1995), 95.

(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 25.

66. Salom?, Nietzsche, 144.

referring to Brandes's pamphlet "Friedrich Nietzsche: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism,"

Philosophiques, in H. Psichari, ed., Oeuvres compl?tes de Ernest Renan (Paris: Calmann-L?vy,

passage just mentioned in Schopenhauer (Brobjer, "Nietzsche's Reading About Eastern

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