Ecology and Oriental Philosophies in the Beats

The book is a study of how far the American beat writers, especially Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Jack Kerouac have been influenced by the oriental philosophies, namely, Vedanta, Buddhism and Zen Buddhism, which concepts of these philosophies find projection in the literary compositions of these poets and fiction–writers and what they have to say about the ‘scientific development’ which is increasingly disturbing the ecology of not only America but of the whole globe. The beats’ was the earliest voice of protest against the scientists’ ignoring the needs of the environment and drew the attention of the world to the fact that if the fruits of a philosophy had something missing in them the fault must be there in the seed itself. It was with this understanding that the beats turned to the oriental philosophies and found that the oriental concepts of the organic unity of the whole universe, the transmigration of the soul and rebirth, compassion for the lower animals, nay regarding the whole universe as the manifestation of the supreme being enabled one to comprehend the universe better than the philosophy asserting the simultaneous existence of the forces of virtue and vice. And that endeared the oriental philsophies to the beats, and led them to make in these philosophies a search for the remedies of the ills of the modern life. The book is an attempt to bring to light all such facts.