Heinrich Zimmer

Heinrich Zimmer (1890-1943) is best known in the English-speaking world for the four posthumous books edited by Joseph Campbell and published in the Bollingen Series: Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, Philosophies of India, The Art of Indian Asia, and The King and the Corpse. These works have inspired several generations of students of Indian religion and culture. Zimmer wrote about Indian art and culture with a feeling and an understanding unique among Western scholars, qualities that have kept his work alive even when subsequent scholars have quarreled with his interpretations. Until 1938 Zimmer worked in Germany, meeting C. G. Jung and finding inspiration and support in the Jungian circle at the Eranos conferences in Ascona. In spite of increasing Nazi repression, he produced during these years a large number of books and articles on Indian tantric texts, yoga, and Indian art and religion - works that remain largely unknown to English speakers. Fleeing the Third Reich in 1938, he moved to New Rochelle, New York in 1940. He was just beginning to establish himself at Columbia University and among the New York Jungians when he died of pneumonia. The posthumous works