Abstract

The integration of the spiritual and the practical is the very culture and tradition of India. R.K. Narayan represents with exceptional clarity and sensitivity the Indian tradition, by presenting the interaction between mundane and transcendent aspects of everyday Indian life. Contrary to many Western notions about the Indian experience, it is only through this interaction that the full range and depth of Indian spiritual life can be represented. Many have worked on Narayan and his fiction but no one has considered the question of mundane-transcendent interactions. This book focuses on Narayan's representation of this Indian tradition and opens new ground by clearly picturing the Indianness of spirituality in ordinary daily life.