Slideshow: Allen Ginsberg in India, 1963

BENARES, INDIA - FEBRUARY 1963: Beat poet Allen Ginsberg with Peter Orlovsky and friend in Benares, on the bank of the Ganges River. Ginsberg explored Eastern philosophies with Peter Orlovsky and other founders of the Beat movement during his March '62 - May '63 stay. (Pete Turner/Getty Images)

BENARES, INDIA - FEBRUARY 1963: Ginsberg washing on the bank of the Ganges River. (Pete Turner/Getty Images)

BENARES, INDIA - FEBRUARY 1963: Ginsberg buying food. (Pete Turner/Getty Images)

BENARES, INDIA - FEBRUARY 1963: Ginsberg reading on his bed in his tenement apartment. (Pete Turner/Getty Images)

BENARES, INDIA - FEBRUARY 1963: Ginsberg and Orlovsky walking along the Ganges. (Pete Turner/Getty Images)

BENARES, INDIA - FEBRUARY 1963: Ginsberg smoking in his apartment. (Pete Turner/Getty Images)

BENARES, INDIA - FEBRUARY 1963: Ginsberg points at a poster in his apartment near the banks of the Ganges. (Pete Turner/Getty Images)

BENARES, INDIA - FEBRUARY 1963: Ginsberg with holy man walking on the street in Benares. (Pete Turner/Getty Images)

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NEW YORK, June 14, 2008 - Prompted by Deborah Baker's book A Blue Hand: The Beats in India (Penguin Press, 2008), Asia Society's symposium "The Beats in India" focused on the Indian journeys of the Beats in the 1960s. Vivid poetry readings alternated with panel discussions exploring what drew Allen Ginsberg and his fellow Beats to India, and how that generation of writers inspired, and continues to inspire, successive generations of Westerners to turn to the East for spiritual and creative inspiration.

Participants in the day-long event included Allen Ginsberg's fellow travelers and poets Gary Snyder and Joanne Kyger, poets Sunil Gangopadhyay, John Giorno, Anne Waldman, and Ed Sanders, musician Steven Taylor, and authors Deborah Baker, Pankaj Mishra, Eliot Weinberger, Gita Mehta, and Bill Morgan.

The above slideshow documents Ginsberg's extended stay in Benares, India, in February 1963.

Related materials:

The Beats in India symposium page (summary, audio excerpts, and video link)

The Beats in India—An Indian Perspective