Shiva and the Primordial Tradition: From the Tantras to the Science of Dreams

It is impossible to speak or write of Alain Danielou's works without saying something of the man himself, for the force of his personality infuses his work in a way that is the case with only a very few authors outside of fiction, and seen even more rarely in works of scholarship. Alain Daniélou was born near Paris in 1907, the child of an ardently Catholic and traditionalist mother and an anti-clerical, Breton politican father who served as minister in several cabinets. Alain Daniélou's brother, Jean, entered the Roman Catholic clergy and was made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI, afterward being elected to the Academie Francaise. Alain himself had in youth rejected Christanity in general and Catholicism in particular in favor of Asian spiritual paths, and was avowedly and enthusiastically homosexual in an era when such an identification would invite disgrace and rejection and could even entail loss of life or livelihood. Alain Daniélou spent most of his childhood with tutors, a library and a piano. During these formative years, he discovered music and painting. As a young man he left France to attend an American school at Annapolis, where he earned pocket-money by selling his paintings and playing the piano at silent movie theatres. On his return to France, he studied singing under Charles Panzéra, as well as classical dancing with Nicholas Legat, Nijinski's master, and composition with Max d'Olonne. He gave recitals and exhibited his paintings. A keen sportsman, Alain Daniélou was a canoeing champion and an expert race car driver. In 1932, he made a trip to explore the Afghan Pamir, and, in 1934, an endurance test by car from Paris to Calcutta. Together with the Swiss photographer, Raymond Burnier, he then departed for the East, travelling in North Africa, the Middle-East, India, Indonesia, China and Japan. He finally established himself in India, initially with Rabindranath Tagore, who entrusted him with missions to his friends (Paul Valéry, Romain Rolland, André Gide, Paul Morand, Benedetto Croce) and appointed him director of his school of music at Shantiniketan. Alain Daniélou eventually retired to Benares, living on the banks of the Ganges. There he discovered the traditional culture of India, into which he was initiated over time. He was to stay in Benares for fifteen years, studying classical Indian music with the prestigious master Shivendranath Basu, along with Hindi which he spoke and wrote fluently as his own mother- tongue, Sanskrit and philosophy, with masters who were among the highest authorities of tradition. In this work, Danielou explores the relationship between Shaivism and the Western world. Shaivite philosophy does not oppose theology, cosmology and the sciences because it recognizes their common aim: to seek to understand and explain the nature of the world. In the West, the notion of bridging the divide between science and religion is just beginning to touch the edges of mainstream thought. "Shiva and the Primordial