Items

• ‘Op bezoek bij een Indisch Zamindar’ (‘Visiting an Indian Zamindar’)
  A Belgian newspaper article from the 1950s reporting a visit to an Indian zamindar or landowner. It is part of an extensive series of articles, published in a colonial newspaper and written by the author Aster Berkhof who would become well-known in the subsequent decades. Like the other articles, this piece reveals much about its author’s attitudes towards a society and culture foreign to him.
• ‘Het drama van een landbouwer die zijn akker niet wilde verlaten (‘The drama of a farmer who refused to leave his field’)
  A Belgian newspaper article from the 1950s reporting the case of an Indian farmer and the situation in rural India at the time. It is part of an extensive series of articles, written by the author Aster Berkhof who would become well-known in the subsequent decades. Like the other articles, this text showcases some of the typical problems in European reporting about India.
• ‘Schijn en werkelijkheid in Delhi’ (‘Appearances and reality in Delhi’)
  A newspaper article from the 1950s written by the Belgian author Aster Berkhof who would become well-known in the subsequent decades. The article describes his arrival in Delhi and the typical image of India he has and reports his own experiences and judgements. This is part of a series of articles published in a colonial newspaper, which exemplify some of the typical problems of European reporting about India.
• Im fernen Osten: Reisen des Grafen Béla Széchenyi in Indien, Japan, China, Tibet und Birma in den Jahren 1877-1880 (In the Far East: Count Béla Széchenyi's travels in India, Japan, China, Tibet, and Burma in the years 1877-1880)
  Description of an Austrio-Hungarian scientific mission under the leadership of Graf Béla Széchenyi in the 1870s, by steamship from Trieste to Bombay (and later onwards towards China and Japan) described and written by Gustav Kreitner based on his own observations, including his own illustrations/woodcuts. His description is focused on local life, particularly monuments and perceived ‘religions’.
• Lampa k Hatha-jógu (The Lamp to Hatha-yoga)
  Translation of a preface to the Hatha-yoga pradipika, by the Czech occultist, mystic, and writer Karel Weinfurter, originally published in 1936.
• V imenu Gospodovem (In the Name of the Lord)
  The translation consists of excerpts from a travelogue by Slovene Jesuit missionary Stanko Poderžaj, originally published serially in eleven installments of Katoliški misijoni, Ljubljana. The chosen passage concerns the author’s visit to the Kalighat temple in Calcutta.