Traces of India in Polish Literature

magni_mogolis_imperium.jpg, default, Magni Mogolis Imperium, 1711, photo: National Museum in Warsaw, Traces of India in Polish Literature

#language & literature

What links a Polish Romantic bard, a 20th‑century reporter, and a children’s story about a maharaja’s kindness? India. Its philosophies, landscapes and languages have long stirred the Polish imagination – from Mickiewicz’s fascination with Sanskrit, to Kapuściński’s conflicted reflections on Calcutta. The subcontinent has appeared in Polish writing as mirror, muse and moral challenge, revealing as much about Poland’s cultural yearnings as about India itself.

‘And so literature about India, the popular, widely read kind, was limited to mysterious exoticism. Jungles and fakirs, sacred monkeys and snake charmers. This is what fed our imagination, hungry for knowledge of distant countries, unaware that instead of facts, it was absorbing myths,’ wrote Ryszard Kapuściński in the communist newspaper Sztandar Młodych (Standard for the Young).

The destination of his business trip in September 1956 was a country perceived as a mirage. A place where everything is ‘unusual, colourful and shrouded in a mysterious mist’. The now famed reporter decided to strip India of the exotic sari imposed on it by his predecessors. Did he succeed? And how did Indian thought influence Polish literature? Let's find out from selected authors, starting with the era considered to be the ‘interference of Indianism in European culture’.

The romantic soul of India

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‘Akbar's Mausoleum bei Secundra in Indien’ by Ad Rottmann, pre-1864, photo: Polona National Library

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One might be hard-pressed to find a school teaching that the literary character Tadeusz Soplica was a descendant of Indian gods, but is this idea completely absurd? What is certain is that before creating his national epic Pan Tadeusz, Adam Mickiewicz studied Friedrich Schlegel’s On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians, although Joachim Lelewel, author of Dzieje Starożytnych Indii (Ancient History of India), advised him against it.

‘I have buried myself in Hammer [an Austrian orientalist – ed.] and am preparing to attack Schlegel’s India,’ the poet informed his mentor in a letter. Lelewel replied: ‘Do you want to wage war on India with Schlegel, Adam? Apparently, Heeren [a German historian] has waged a similar war in recent times and was planning to publish something on the subject in Hamburg.’ Some critics, such as the influential journalist Edmund Chojecki, also saw an analogy between the animism of nature, Indian pantheism and the animated nature seen in Pan Tadeusz. The bard himself fuelled these speculations during his lectures in Paris.

Mickiewicz’s interest in mythology and Indian thought began at the University of Vilnius, where he moved in orientalist circles. He deepened his knowledge in the field in St. Petersburg and, according to orientalist Jan Tuczyński, in Prague too. However, he did not present his fully formed views until he was at the Collège de France. He declared that he derived Slavic mythology (and all other mythologies) from Indian mythology and considered Sanskrit to be the richest of all languages. Perhaps under the influence of Andrzej Towiański and his teachings based, among other things, on the Indian system of metempsychosis, he became acquainted with the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American philosopher impressed by Buddhism – he quoted him during lectures and speeches delivered at Towiański’s headquarters for the Circle of God’s Cause. It is possible that it was there that Juliusz Słowacki first encountered Emerson's ideas.

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‘The Maharajas’ Palace on Lake Udajpur (from a trip to India)’ by Jan Ciągliński, 1907, photo: National Museum in Warsaw

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Did the author of The Spirit King practise yoga? Not in the literal sense, as he had never been to India and the first Polish yoga manual, written by Wincenty Lutosławski (uncle of the renowned composer Witold Lutosławski), was not published until six decades after the Romantic poet’s death. Nevertheless, Słowacki shared many affinities with this spiritual discipline. As early as the end of the 19th century, researchers identified the influence of Indian religion and philosophy in his works.

According to the orientalist professor Jan Tuczyński, modernists, led by Jan Kasprowicz, ‘saw in The Spirit King the highest incarnation of ancient Indian poetry’. The orientalist himself describes the poem as a ‘metempsychic fairy tale’. In Motywy Indyjskie w Literaturze Polskiej (Indian Motifs in Polish Literature), he lists Vedic elements (the oldest known religion in India) in Słowacki’s symbolism, concluding that ‘almost every word of The Spirit King emanates the Sun, the Moon, fire, explodes with fire or gushes with lightning’. It was precisely this lightning-like nature attributed to the absolute universal spirit of Brahman that Vedic thinkers ‘incorporated into yoga’.

Schopenhauer’s lyricism

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‘Means of Transport, Music, Dance’ by Albert Racinet, circa 1878, photo: Polona National Library

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Drawing on Słowacki’s monism, Kasprowicz encountered ancient Indian thought at the University of Wrocław. At that time, there was no such thing as regular Indological studies, although Professor Bernhard Jülg had been lecturing on Sanskrit at the University of Kraków as early as 1860. Influenced by Schopenhauer’s philosophy and the monism of Vedanta, the Young Poland poet furthered his studies in this area at the University of Lviv. Armed with the basic concepts of Indian pantheism and the Buddhist recognition of suffering as a fundamental value, as well as Schopenhauer’s pessimism and the idea of nature as clarity, silence, love and patriotism, Kasprowicz wrote Hymny (Hymns), Księga Ubogich (The Book of the Poor), Savitri and Sita, Indyjski Hymn Miłości w Trzech Odsłonach (Sita: An Indian Love Hymn in Three Acts).

Without the influence of Andrzej Gawroński, a promising Indologist, and Antoni Lang, an admirer of the Far East, these works by the Young Poland artist would probably not have been written – or at least not in their current form. Lang was the uncle of Bolesław Leśmian, and it is probably thanks to him that the works of the author of Meadow (Łąka) contain so many Indian elements. This inspiration is particularly evident in his next collection of poetry, Napój Cienisty (Shady Drink), in poems such as Pururawa and Urwasi and Żołnierz (Soldier). Leśmian's earliest volume, Sad Rozstajny (The Crossroads Garden), also contains elements of pantheism and Hinduism.

So did Kapuściński exaggerate a little when he labelled Polish literature inspired by India as exotic? Let’s take a closer look.

I was here – Witkacy & Kapuściński

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‘India quae Orientalis dicitur et insulae adiacentes’, a map lithograph by Józef Kośmiński, 1835, photo: Polona National Library

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How long does it take to fall in love with India? Witkacy needed less than a day – that's how long he spent in Mumbai (at the time, the city was still called Bombay, but it officially changed its name in 1995 to distance itself from its colonial past) on his way back from Australia in the summer of 1914.

He had been persuaded to take a several-week-long trip by Bronisław Malinowski. The anthropologist needed a photographer and illustrator to document his scientific research among the peoples of the Trobriand Islands near New Guinea. He decided to ask his old friend Witkacy, who needed a break to ease his conscience after the recent suicide of his fiancée. Initially, the trip went smoothly. The friends stopped for two weeks in Sri Lanka (known as Ceylon then), where the young Witkiewicz sent his father a letter full of admiration for the landscape: ‘Dearest Dad: I am unable to describe the wonders I see here. They are things of monstrous beauty.’

However, the traveller’s peace was soon shattered by a nervous breakdown, news of the outbreak of war in Europe, and an argument with Malinowski. Despite deciding to return home, Witkacy still felt the heat of the Mumbai sun and described the city itself as ‘wonderful’. Critics agree that this trip changed the work of the future author of Farewell to Autumn, a novel in which India ignites the imagination of the reader.

This distant country, ‘huge, diverse, contradictory’ and ‘so unlike Poland’, changed the life of the twenty-something Kapuściński too. This was not because he produced any groundbreaking work – in fact, the articles he published in Sztandar Młodych in the late 1950s were not republished until 2024 in the book Gorzki Smak Wody (The Bitter Taste of Water) by Oficyna Wydawnicza Kontynenty – but because it was his first foreign trip as a promising reporter. Until then, he had only ventured beyond his editorial desk in the form of letters sent in by readers. Now, he had the opportunity to break free from the clutches of the communist regime and experience a different world. A better one? Not necessarily. A captivating one? Definitely.

Despite his excitement about visiting a foreign country, Kapuściński does not view it uncritically. He condemns the crime of colonisation, watches refugees travelling to and from Pakistan at Sealdah Station in Calcutta, and describes the ‘narrow, smelly and old streets’ of Benares, which are ‘filled with noise, crowds and glare’. He argues that:

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India is not an exotic country, and if one insists on calling it exotic, then it is only a decoration, subordinate to what is happening on stage. Unfortunately, what reached us was an empty decoration, the heroes of the drama did not arrive.

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The holy city of Haridwar, India, 1900, photo: Polona National Library

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Farewell to Autumn concerns the lovers Hela and Anastazy, whose journey to India is associated with a metaphysical transformation. Spoiler alert: it is unsuccessful. Hela smoothly converts to Buddhism (although she had previously changed her religion from Judaism to Catholicism in a single day) and bases her sexual experiments on the Kama Sutra. Following his wife’s death, Anastazy embarks on a pursuit of his new lover, only to flee in terror from her behaviour. Everything takes place in a setting that seems Indian, but is not. Witkacy admits that he does not know why he transferred ‘certain events to India, based on things seen in Ceylon’.

Although Krzysztof Iwanek describes Witkacy’s motif of travelling to the East as a ‘parody’, the novel echoes the oriental promise of spiritual transformation that was so common in the literature of that period. As an Indologist and historian notes, ‘Farewell to Autumn is much more about the European, idealised view of India than about India itself’.

The writer drew on his knowledge of Indian philosophy from the writings of Schopenhauer, whom the Decadents called the Buddha of Frankfurt (Hela refers to the philosopher as the ‘master of childhood’). Tuczyński writes that he sees a similarity between Witkacy’s theory of Pure Form and Indian theatre. This is where we can end our search for Indian themes in Witkacy's work, for whom the homeland of the Kama Sutra was more of a pretext for presenting his own philosophy. And while the author of Farewell to Autumn teaches his characters about India by mainly drawing on knowledge gained from reading, Kapuściński – having experienced the country first-hand for much more than a day – educates the reader more than anything else. He does this by captivating them with vivid metaphors and emphasising the differences between India and Poland. Some of his observations remain relevant today.

In the maharaja’s house

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Cover and spread from the book ‘Bapu: A Story about the Good Maharaja’, text by Monika Kowaleczko-Szumowska, illustrations by Marcin Minor, photo: Wydawnictwo Literatura

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Let’s visit Mumbai again, this time with the characters from Bapu: Opowieść o Dobrym Maharadży (Bapu: A Story about the Good Maharaja), a book for younger readers by Monika Kowaleczko-Szumowska. Kopal, a resident of a city stolen from the sea, goes on holiday to Balachadi with her parents and younger sister. There, she learns the story of Polish children who were deported to Siberia during the war and found refuge in a settlement created especially for them by an Indian ruler. Kowaleczko-Szumowska expands this extraordinary true story of selfless help, probably well known to Polish adults, with biographical details about the maharaja himself (although she does not mention his fondness for the Polish translation of The Peasants) and the relationships between the refugee characters. The reader is kept in suspense by the book’s very structure: the threads are broken off at crucial moments, momentum is maintained by changes in time and place, all while difficult topics such as trauma and death are not shied away from by the author.

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A street in Bombay, India, photographed by Jan Kosidowski, 1962, photo: National Museum in Warsaw

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Kowaleczko-Szumowska, who is not only a writer, but a screenwriter and film producer, also told this story in comic book form (Niusiek: Wojenne Losy Dzieci Maharadży [Niusiek: The Wartime Fate of the Maharaja’s Children], illustrated by Urmas Viik) and in an interactive web documentary, Dzieci Maharadży (Children of the Maharaja). The latter allows the reader to experience the wartime exodus from Poland to India even more deeply.

Let us return to our chosen journalistic trail.

Le Corbusier in the urban jungle

In one of his reportages, Kapuściński mentions the coexistence of different eras characteristic of India: ‘Ancient times exist here alongside modernity, the present is saturated with the past and in order to understand what is happening today, one must thoroughly understand what happened many centuries ago.’ He continues:

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Thus, the cannibalistic Naga tribe, a nuclear reactor, a wooden stake, Impressionism and bamboo huts all coexist alongside Le Corbusier’s constructions. It seems that even things like this can all be reconciled.

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A street in Bombay, India, photographed by Jan Kosidowski, 1962, photo: National Museum in Warsaw

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Contemporary writers and reporters express similar views. Weronika Rokicka, for example, draws attention to the mixture of tradition and modernity in Indie: Kraj Miliarda Marzeń (India: Land of a Billion Dreams). The Indologist expertly guides the reader through the socio-economic intricacies of this independent country (India gained independence from British rule on 15th August 1947):

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Some celebrate Indianness by practising yoga or classical Indian dance, while others want to fight for the protection of cows and religious purity. For some, a love of Indian food or Bollywood films is enough to feel Indian, while others are willing to devote long hours to endless online debates about Indian history.

A similar passage can also be found in Paulina Wilk’s book Lalki w Ogniu (Dolls on Fire):

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India lives in many centuries at once. Content from thousands of years ago has fallen into a great jug and mixed with the new achievements of civilisation – everyone drinks from the same source, soaked in tradition. No one is free from it.

Despite being published in 2011, Wilk’s debut book still captivates with its intensity of impressions, colourful phrasing and the narrator’s perceptiveness. Her carefully constructed story transforms a mosaic of micro-stories into a cross-sectional picture of contemporary India.

Cover of Paweł Smoleński’s book ‘Trędowate Kobiety Czyszczą Ryż’ (Leprous Women Clean Rice), photo: Czarne publishing house

Gandhi’s homeland is presented somewhat differently in books by Katarzyna Boni and Paweł Smoleński. Both Auroville (about an experimental town in the middle of the jungle built from both illusion and reality) and Trędowate Kobiety Czyszczą Eyż (Leprous Women Clean Rice – about a settlement isolated from the world for people affected by leprosy and social exclusion) are more discreet stories, created with empathy and a need to understand other people. Boni deconstructs utopia. Smoleński rejects prejudice. Both look beneath the surface of human relationships to distinguish between peace and rejection, choice and coercion.

Trędowate Kobiety Czyszczą Ryż was Smoleński’s last reportage before he passed away in 2023. The original plan was to create a book about leprosy, bringing together stories from different corners of the world. The Jeevodaya Centre, or Dawn of Life, founded by a Polish Pallottine priest in India in 1969, was to be the first point on the map – it turned out to be the last fully recognised area of Smoleński’s intervention. Even if the reporter sat uninhibited among his subjects and watched them intently – as in Adam Rostkowski’s photograph – and then wrote everything down on paper, trying to remain invisible, his stories are undoubtedly interventionist in nature. Free from judgement, they encourage dialogue with the Other. Just like in the story of the good maharaja, where the alien is replaced by compassion.

From Sanskrit to Kannada

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Kalikaćarjakatha – a card from a Jain manuscript, India, circa 1450-1550, photo: National Museum in Warsaw

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Translators who seek to convey Indian cultural nuances face even more of a challenge than the reporters covering the country. This is not about cultural differences or inadequacy of meaning, but about the language barrier. According to the constitution, India has 22 official languages, but in reality, over 400 can be heard on the streets (although census records list nearly two thousand languages and dialects!).

In the chapter ‘The Land of a Hundred Languages’, Rokicka recalls the figure of Rabindranath Tagore. In his homeland, this Nobel Prize winner is still considered a spiritual guide: some value him for his work, while for most he embodies pride in their language and culture.

In his lecture The Philosophy of Leisure (1929), he spoke about the ‘freedom of linguistic self-determination’ of the Indus people, the ‘freedom of imagination’ in Indian literature, the ‘freedom of the soul in religious beliefs’ and the ‘freedom of the mind in the social environment’. Although he did not glorify his own culture, he criticised, like Gandhi, English-language education, which he believed placed the nation at a lower level of civilisation, subordinate to foreign powers. However, he himself became known in Western literature mainly thanks to his own translations of his works into English.

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‘Hindus and Muslims: Brahmins and Women’ by Albert Racinet, circa 1878, photo: National Library of Poland

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Polish readers were able to discover the works of the Indian poet and novelist quite quickly thanks to the work of Leopold Staff and Jan Kasprowicz, among others. Unfortunately, they did not translate from the original language, but from Tagore’s own translations. Even Gawroński first took on the English version of the work Sādhanā, and it was not until eight years later, in 1932, that he created the first Polish Sanskrit textbook.

It would seem that a hundred years later, in the age of globalisation, easy border crossing (including linguistic borders) and developed education, similar situations are unlikely to occur. However, there is still much to be done, as can be seen in the example of the 2025 International Booker Prize, which was awarded to Banu Mushtaq for her book Heart Lamp. Mushtaq, a lawyer and women’s rights activist in southern India, wrote short stories in Kannada. The problem is that there are no competent people in Poland who know the language of the inhabitants of Karnataka, so the book will be published in Poland as a translation from English. Let us hope that the success of the Indian writer will change this practice and that translation from the original language will become the norm.

_{Sources: Krzysztof Iwanek, ‘India in ‘Farewell to Autumn’’. A promise of liberation or another intelligent mockery by Witkacy?’ [in:] ‘Literary Diary’, CII, vol. 1, 2016; Halina Marlewicz, ‘Bolesław Leśmian – Indian inspirations’ [in:] ‘Perspektywy Kultury’, no. 1, Krakow 2009; Dagmara Nowakowska, ‘Indian themes in the mystical works of Juliusz Słowacki’ [in:] ‘Pamiętnik Literacki’, CIX, vol. 2, 2018; Jan Tuczyński, ‘Indian motifs in Kasprowicz's poetry: origins and context’ [in:] ‘Pamiętnik Literacki’, LXII, vol. 3, 1971; Jan Tuczyński, ‘Indian motifs in Polish literature’, Warsaw 1981}

Originally written in Polish, translated by Aneta Romańska, Sept 2025

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