The author of the multi-volume epic "Jean-Christophe," the famous French writer Romain Rolland is considered one of the creators of the genre of artistic biography. He owns the biographies of Beethoven, Tolstoy, Michelangelo. In the first decades of the 20th century, when the Middle European intelligentsia was still developing an interest in the East, R. Rolland turned to India, its philosophy and culture.