The novel “Maitreya” is the first significant experience in the artistic refraction of the impressions that befell the author in India. This novel is considered to be autobiographical, realistic, since in it the “sacred”, “other-existent” is not revealed as openly as in the later works of Eliade. With a superficial reading, and even with an eye on Joseph Conrad and Somerset Maugham, one can perceive it as another a version of a sentimental and tragic story about a white man’s love for a “beautiful native” - a story flavored, moreover, with satirical notes designed to expose the spiritual insignificance of the notorious “pioneers” who spend time in night drinking sessions with cheerful girls. In Eliade's novel, some concepts about the erotic side of tantra yoga are given in half-hints, but this is done extremely delicately, because a work of art carries a completely different load than an esoteric treatise or a scientific monograph.