There is nothing a Jesuit will not do, if it is humanly possible. He will cross the seas, cross deserts, climb mountains, live among aboriginals, learn strange tongues and write in them with authority. Carlos Valles and Paul Johnson are both Jesuits. Valles, a Spaniard, is a scholar in Gujarat. In 1980 he was chosen by the Gujarati Literary Academy for the prestigious Ranjitram Gold Medal. Jackson, is an Australian and is a specialist in Urdu and took his doctorate with his work Sharafuddin Maneri: The Hundred Letters. It is a measure of their catholicity that they can widen their spiritual horizons to a study of other religions and other systems of thought. The best way to understand both these remarkable men is to read them. They will pardon me if I describe them as heterodox. Valles, the Spaniard was once asked: ‘What has India given you?’, And his answer has been: ‘India has enlarged and enriched the concept I had of God…. and that is possibly the best service she has rendered me’. In his very first essay in Sketches of God, Valles says: ‘Such is the final answer I give and by that I mean, that it has taken me a long time to reach the clarity and finality of that little formula. I have lived in India for almost forty years, and, at the beginning, apart from the fact that nobody then asked me the question, I would not have thought of giving such an answer…’
Laden With Good Things
M. V. KAMATH
SKETCHES OF GOD by C.G. Valles Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, Anand, , 178 pp., price not stated.
UNENCUMBERED BY BAGGAGE by C.G. Valles Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, Anand, , 184 pp., 32.00
THE WAY OF A SUFI by Paul Jackson Idarah-i-Adabiyat-i, Delhi, , 278 pp., 15.00