The Wishing Tree: The Presence and Promise of India

The past two decades have brought revolutionary changes in the understanding of the Indian civilization. This essay, as an overview of this new understanding, it for the general reader. It is based on three invited lectures at Stanford University and the Berkeley and Irvine campuses of the University of California on 14 and 15 April 2000. Some comments on this work: (i) In The Wishing Tree: The Presence and Promise of India, Subhash Kak presents what is arguably the most completes, articulate and up-to-date overview on the entire Indic tradition. More notably, he speaks not from a dry academic standpoint by from one in contact with the very soul and spirit of the culture. His panoramic view covers spirituality, science, linguistics and history, making clear India’s important role in the world civilization past, present and future. He dispels the many current distortions and misinterpretations of India, the cobwebs of colonial and Eurocentric thinking, and reveals her vast civilization on its true light. Everyone interested in India and in human civilization will be fascinated and transformed by his many-sided insights. They will never look at India again in the same way-David Frawley, author of Gods, Sages and Kings and other books. (ii) As a millennial retrospective of the transnational journey of Indic ideas, The Wishing Tree: The Presence and Promise of India, is an auspicious augury of a cultural Renaissance among diaspora Indians. Subhash Kak’s Language is lucid; it is at times very poetic. His speaking voice is firm and precise. Reading this volume made me think that perhaps what is worth preserving in Indic traditions will endure the ravages of colonial/postcolonial fragmentation. Indic ideas are both secular and sacred, scientific and spiritual, utilitarian and unabashedly devoted to the principle of beauty. In his The Wishing Tree, Subhash Kak tells it all: with acuity, great insight and wisdom.-Lalita Pandit, Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.