In Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Grey, which is the dark drama of a soul almost lost and at the last minute reprieved, there is a moment when a kind friend gives to the hero a copy of The Light of Asia, saying that it may save him, as it is the life of a good man.
Within the Theosophical tradition, The Light of Asia occupies a definite place. So great was H.P.B.'s appreciation and respect for this book—which is a long poem—that she mentioned in her will that if her students and friends wished to come together and remember her on her death anniversary, they should read from two books—The Bhagavad-Gita and The Light of Asia. Gandhiji said, "I read The Light of Asia with even greater interest than I did the Gita. Once I had begun it, I could not leave off." Oliver Wendell Holmes, the great American author, said, "It is a work of great beauty, it tells a story of intense interest which never flags for a moment. Its descriptions are drawn by the hand of the master with the eye of a poet. Its tone is so lofty that there is nothing with which to compare it but the New Testament. It is full of variety—now picturesque, now pathetic, now rising in the noblest realms of thought and aspiration." Such was the response to The Light of Asia, which was originally published in 1879. Edwin Arnold writes in the Preface:
Within the Theosophical tradition, The Light of Asia occupies a definite place. So great was H.P.B.'s appreciation and respect for this book—which is a long poem—that she mentioned in her will that if her students and friends wished to come together and remember her on her death anniversary, they should read from two books—The Bhagavad-Gita and The Light of Asia. Gandhiji said, "I read The Light of Asia with even greater interest than I did the Gita. Once I had begun it, I could not leave off." Oliver Wendell Holmes, the great American author, said, "It is a work of great beauty, it tells a story of intense interest which never flags for a moment. Its descriptions are drawn by the hand of the master with the eye of a poet. Its tone is so lofty that there is nothing with which to compare it but the New Testament. It is full of variety—now picturesque, now pathetic, now rising in the noblest realms of thought and aspiration." Such was the response to The Light of Asia, which was originally published in 1879. Edwin Arnold writes in the Preface:
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