A Search in Secret India is the travelogue by the English journalist-turned-mystic Raphael Hurst, writing as Paul Brunton, published by Rider & Co. in 1934. The book recounts Brunton's early 1930s journey through India in search of living spiritual masters, with chapters on Meher Baba, the Shankaracharya of Kanchi, several lesser-known Vaishnava and Shaiva teachers, and — in the chapter that turned out to be most consequential — his extended encounter with Ramana Maharshi at Tiruvannamalai.
It was the first English-language book to introduce Ramana Maharshi to a wide Western readership.
Men make formal and pretentious enquiry into the mystery and meaning of life, when all the while each bird perched upon a green bough, each child holding its fond mother's hand, has solved the riddle and carries the answer in its face.
Chapter XVII, "Tablets of Forgotten Truth"
First lines
There is an obscure passage in the yellowed book of Indian life which I have endeavoured to elucidate for the benefit of Western readers. Early travellers returned home to Europe with weird tales of the Indian faqueers and even modern travellers occasionally bring similar stories.
Contents
Wherein I Bow to the Reader
A Prelude to the Quest
A Magician out of Egypt
I Meet a Messiah
The Anchorite of the Adyar River
The Yoga Which Conquers Death
The Sage Who Never Speaks
With the Spiritual Head of South India
The Hill of the Holy Beacon
Among the Magicians and Holy Men
The Wonder-Worker of Benares
Written in the Stars!
The Garden of the Lord
At the Parsee Messiah's Headquarters
A Strange Encounter
In a Jungle Hermitage
Tablets of Forgotten Truth
Reception
A Search in Secret India was an immediate commercial success in 1930s Britain and is widely credited with making Ramana Maharshi a known figure outside India; Brunton's account of being held by Ramana's silent gaze became one of the most-quoted episodes in 20th-century Western writing on Indian spirituality. Specialist readers and Ramana biographers (David Godman, Arthur Osborne) have flagged that Brunton's later books drift further from straight reportage into his own teaching, and that the 'secret India' framing was always more romance than ethnography; the book is best read as a primary source on the Western reception of Indian non-duality rather than as a reliable critical biography. Larson Publications has kept the book in continuous print since the 1980s, and it remains the standard entry point into Brunton's larger corpus and the Notebooks of Paul Brunton.
Frequently asked
What is A Search in Secret India about?
It is Paul Brunton's account of a journey through India in the early 1930s, interviewing yogis, mystics, and spiritual teachers with a journalist's skeptical eye. The book is remembered chiefly for its account of his encounter with Ramana Maharshi at Tiruvannamalai, which introduced the sage to Western readers for the first time.
Who is Paul Brunton?
Paul Brunton was the pen name of the British journalist and writer Raphael Hurst (1898–1981), known as one of the early popularizers of Indian spiritual traditions in the West. He wrote thirteen books between 1934 and 1952 and is credited with introducing Ramana Maharshi to Western audiences.
Why is the chapter on Ramana Maharshi considered significant?
Brunton's account of sitting with Ramana Maharshi in silence — and the experience of stillness he underwent there — became one of the most-cited episodes in Western writing on Indian non-duality. Scholars such as David Godman and Arthur Osborne have noted the book's role in making Ramana known in the West.