Durgacharan Rakshit (1854-1938) was a scholar and a business owner. In the
late 1800s and early 1900s, he set out on an unprecedented set of travels that
took him to nearly all corners of India. Travelling by foot, boat, train, carriage
and more, he traversed the length and breadth of the country-quite literally.
In this detailed journal written over several years, Rakshit recounts seeing
the temples of Orissa and the small towns of Assam; he describes the
mountainous heights of Kashmir, the beauty of the Golden Temple in Amritsar,
the magnificent Jain temples near Mount Abu, and the transcendent Taj Mahal.
In the south, he travels through Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu,
visiting cities, temples and towns, describing in detail what were for him
unknown customs and ways of living.
Everywhere, Durgacharan Rakshit turns his enquiring eye on the way men
and women look, dress, and their religious and traditional beliefs. From
the elaborate rituals of major temples, to the price of bananas and betel
nuts, nothing escapes his meticulous notice. Along the way he meets poets,
administrators, wandering sadhus, businessmen, householders and more-all
of which he records in his journal.
Journeys Across India, first published in Bengali as Bharat Pradakshin in 1903-
and still in print-is an invaluable and exhaustive portrait of India and Indian
society rooted in history, and will be of immense interest to both scholars and
the lay reader.
