Hinduism and American Literature

By Subhamoy Das, About.com Guide

The great American novelist Herman Melville, in his magnum opus Moby Dick, refers to the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of a whale, which sounded down to the utmost depths of the sea to rescue the sacred books.

And in a later chapter, Melville returns to the same theme:"When Brahma, or the God of Gods, resolved to recreate the world after one of its periodical dissolusions, he gave birth to Vishnu, to preside over the work: but the Vedas, or mystical books, whose perusal would seem to have been indispensable to Vishnu before beginni ng the creation ... were lying at the bottom of the waters."

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• Journey of the Upanishads to the West
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau
• Herman Melville
• Walt Whitman

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