Sunday, June 29, 2003
Richard Bernstein
Just finished "Ultimate Journey" by Richard Bernstein. Bernstein traces the journey of Hsuan Tsang to India in search of spiritual enlightenment. I have been intrigued by Tsang since I read about him in Class VII history or some such. As I remember it, he provided a highly informative account of India at the time, something the Indians of the time didnt really bother doing. To that extent it was a good book, though I wish Bernstein would decide whether he was a spiritual junky or a travel writer instead of being a mish-mash of both. Moreover, he makes a lot of silly errors like calling Matunga Patunga and so on, which could easily have been avoided by him or a more attentive editor. William Dalrymple he is not, but a good read nevertheless.
