abstract

With an emphasis on the writings and personal ideologies of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, this essay explores the philosophical connections between Indian Vedantic thinking and American transcendentalism. This study illustrates how Vedantic spiritual principles informed and paralleled fundamental transcendental concepts like self-reliance, the Over-Soul, harmony with nature, and the unity of all beings by examining their foundational writings and their interactions with Indian texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. By placing Emerson and Thoreau as early representatives of Eastern philosophy in American literature, the comparative research sheds light on a transnational intellectual interchange that reshaped literary and spiritual paradigms during the 19th century.