Western Indologists' translations

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 extracts from

 

Early indology of india

Svami B.V. Giri

 

Early Indologists – a Study in Motivation

 

The First Pioneers of Indology

It may be surprising to learn that the first pioneer in indology was the 12th

Century Pope, Honorius IV.

The Holy Father encouraged the learning of oriental languages in order to preach

Christianity amongst the pagans. Soon after this in 1312, the Ecumenical Council

of the Vatican decided that-

 

"The Holy Church should have an abundant number of Catholics well versed in the

languages, especially in those of the infidels, so as to be able to instruct

them in the sacred doctrine."

 

The result of this was the creation of the chairs of Hebrew, Arabic and Chaldean

at the Universities of Bologna, Oxford, Paris and Salamanca. A century later in

1434, the General Council of Basel returned to this theme and decreed that –

 

"All Bishops must sometimes each year send men well-grounded in the divine word

to those parts where Jews and other infidels live, to preach and explain the

truth of the Catholic faith in such a way that the infidels who hear them may

come to recognize their errors. Let them compel them to hear their preaching."

 

Centuries later in 1870, during the First Vatican Council, Hinduism was

condemned in the "five anathemas against pantheism" according to the Jesuit

priest John Hardon in the Church-authorized book, The Catholic Catechism.

However, interests in indology only took shape when the British came to India.

 

A Short History of the British in India

 

Whilst the 17th century marked the zenith of India’s mediaeval glory, the 18th

century was a flagrant display of degradation, misery, and anarchy. The Moghul

Empire was at its end, the nobility had become corrupt and oppressive, and

intellectual curiosity had given way to superstitious beliefs. The country was

in a state of military and political turmoil, and literature, art and culture

could hardly flourish in such an atmosphere. Into this scenario came the

European traders.

It was the Portuguese and the Dutch who were the first Europeans to arrive in

India. When the French and the

British came on the scene, all parties began vying for commercial power over

India’s ports. Through financial aid form their governments, treaties with local

rulers and huge armies of mercenaries, the foreign trading companies gradually

became more powerful than the deteriorating Moghul empire. The turning point

came in 1757 when the British East India Company defeated an Indian army at the

Battle of Plassey, and thus gained supremacy. Through treaties and annexation,

the Company soon took full control of the subcontinent and ceded it to the

British government.

At first, the British government remained cautious in forcing any religious

change upon the Indians. This policy seemed to be practical in ruling several

hundred million Indians without sparking off a rebellion. Or as one tea-dealer

Mr.Twinning put it -

 

"As long as we continue to govern India in the mild, tolerant spirit of

Christianity, we may govern it with ease; but if ever the fatal day should

arrive, when religious innovation shall set her foot in that country,

indignation will spread from one end of the Hindustan to the other, and the arms

of fifty millions of people will drive us from that portion of the globe, with

as much ease as the sand of the desert is scattered by the wind".

Another point of view in support of that policy was by Montgomery.

 

"Christianity had nothing to teach Hinduism, and no missionary ever made a

really good Christian convert in India. He was more anxious to save the 30,000

of his country-men in India than to save the souls of all the Hindus by making

them Christians at so dreadful a price".

 

Thus, under the authority of Lord Cornwallis (1786-1805) a mood of laissez-faire

dominated the British attitude towards the Indian and his religious practices.

The Governor-general in 1793 had decreed to -

 

"…preserve the laws of the Shaster and the Koran, and to protect the natives of

India in the free exercise of their religion."

 

However, one year before this law was put into effect, the author Charles Grant

wrote,

 

"The Company manifested a laudable zeal for extending, as far as its means went,

the knowledge of the Gospel to the pagan tribes among whom its factories were

placed."

 

In 1808 he described the opening of Christian missionary schools and

translations of the Bible into Indian languages as "principal efforts made under

the patronage of the British government in India, to impart to the natives a

knowledge of Christianity."

Despite this, the British showed little interest in Vedic scriptures. Doubtless

this was in part a reflection of the usual British attitude to India during most

of the period of the Raj - that India was simply a profitable nuisance.

 

Back home in England the various political parties had different opinions in how

India should be managed. The Conservatives, though they accepted that to

overthrow Indian tradition would be a difficult task, were interested in

improving the Indian way of life, but stressed extreme caution for fear of an

uprising. The Liberal party felt the gradual necessity of introducing western

standards and values into India. The Rationalists had a more radical approach.

Their belief was that reason could abolish human ignorance, and since the West

was the champion of reason, the East would profit by its association.

It would be accurate to say that to the 18th century Englishmen, religion meant

Christianity. Of course, racism played its part also. This attitude of Europeans

toward Indians was due to a sense of superiority - a cherished conviction that

was shared by every Englishman in India, from the highest to the lowest. Upon

his arrival in 1810, the Governor-general Marquis of Hastings wrote:

 

"…the Hindoo appears a being merely limited to mere animal functions, and even

in them indifferent... with no higher intellect than a dog..."

 

European Evangelism in India: William Carey Christian evangelists were

horrified that the Company could take the idolatry and improprieties of a pagan

culture seriously. In their eyes, any kind of support or appreciation for the

religion of the ‘pagans’ was tantamount to blasphemy. In 1825 the British

scholar John Bentley wrote of his conflict with the scientist John Playfair, who

was an admirer of Indian culture -

 

‘By his [Playfair's] attempt to uphold the antiquity of Hindu books against

absolute facts, he thereby supports all those horrid abuses and impositions

found in them, under the pretended sanction of antiquity....Nay, his aim goes

still deeper; for by the same means he endeavors to overturn the Mosaic account,

and sap the very foundation of our religion: for if we are to believe in the

antiquity of Hindu books, as he would wish us, then the Mosaic account is all a

fable, or fiction.’ Seeing India as an unlimited field for missionary

activity, and insisting that it was part of a Christian government's duty to

promote this, Christian missionaries came to India without any government

approval.

 

William Carey (1761-1834) was the pioneer of the modern missionary enterprise in

India, and of western (missionary) scholarship in oriental studies. Carey was an

English oriental scholar and the founder of the Baptist Missionary Society. From

1801 onward, as Professor of Oriental Languages, he composed numerous

philosophical works, consisting of 'grammars and dictionaries in the Marathi,

Sanskrit, Punjabi, Telugu, Bengali and Bhatanta dialects. From the Serampor

press, there issued in his life time, over 200,000 Bibles and portions in nearly

40 different languages and dialects, Carey himself undertaking most of the

literary work.

Carey and his colleagues experimented with what came to be known as Church

Sanskrit. He wanted to train a group of 'Christian Pandits' who would probe

"these mysterious sacred nothings" and expose them as worthless. He was

distressed that this "golden casket (of Sanskrit) exquisitely wrought" had

remained "filled with nothing but pebbles and trash." He was determined to fill

it with "riches - beyond all price," that is the doctrine of Christianity.

In fact, Carey smuggled himself into India and caused so much trouble that the

British government labeled him as a political danger. After confiscating a batch

of Bengali pamphlets printed by Carey, the Governor-general Lord Minto

described them as –

 

"Scurrilous invective…Without arguments of any kind, they were filled with hell

fire and still hotter fire, denounced against a whole race of men merely for

believing the religion they were taught by their fathers."

 

Unfortunately Carey and other preachers of his ilk finally gained permission to

continue their campaigns without government approval.

 

Other Preachers

Another preacher, William Archer, wrote in his book, India and the Future –

"The plain truth concerning the mass of the [indian] population — and the poorer

classes alone — is that they are not civilized people."

Reverend A.H. Bowman wrote that Hinduism was a – "…great philosophy which lives

on unchanged whilst other systems are dead, which as yet unsupplanted has its

stronghold in Vedanta, the last and the most subtle and powerful foe of

Christianity."

In 1790, Dr.Claudius Bucchanan, a missionary attached to the East India Company,

arrived in Bengal. Not long after his arrival, the good doctor stated -

"Neither truth, nor honesty, honor, gratitude, nor charity, is to be found in

the breast of a Hindoo."

Bucchanan traveled to Puri in Orissa and witnessed the annual Ratha-yatra (or as

Bucchanan called it, ‘The horrors of Juggernaut’). His description of Jagannatha

– ‘The Indian Moloch’, has been recorded by the historian George Gogerly as- "…a

frightful visage painted black, with a distended mouth of bloody horror."

Perhaps, by seeing the face of Lord Jagannatha, the British hallucinated and saw

a projection of their own international destiny of bloodshed and carnage. In any

case, from the time the British observed the ‘terrifying’ sight of the Lord on

His gigantic chariot, the word ‘juggernaut’ entered the English language and

became synonymous with any great force that crushes everything in its path.

Gogerly went on to write – "The whole history of this famous god (Krsna) is one

of lust, robbery, deceit and murder…the history of the whole hierarchy of

Hindooism is one of shameful iniquity, too vile to be described."

 

The prominent missionary, Alexander Duff (1806-1878) founded the Scottish

Churches College, in Calcutta, which he envisioned as a "headquarters for a

great campaign against Hinduism." Duff sought to convert the Indians by

enrolling them in English-run schools and colleges, and placed emphasis on

learning Christianity through the English language. Duff wrote - " While we

rejoice that true literature and science are to be substituted in place of what

is demonstrably false, we cannot but lament that no provision has been made for

substituting the only true religion-Christianity - in place of the false

religion which our literature and science will inevitably demolish… Of all the

systems of false religion ever fabricated by the perverse ingenuity of fallen

man, Hinduism is surely the most stupendous."

Duff received remarkable success in his educational and missionary activities

amongst the higher classes in Calcutta. The number of students in the mission

schools was four times higher than that in government schools. It is an

axiomatic truth that the aim of missionaries like Duff was not so much education

than conversion. They were obliged to use the excuse of education in order to

meet he needs of the converted population, and more importantly, to train up

Indian assistants to help them in their proselytizing. Duff remained unsatisfied

with converting Indians belonging to low-castes and orphans – his chosen target

was the higher castes, specifically the brahmanas, in order to accelerate the

demise of Hinduism.

Many Englishmen patronized missionary schools such as Duff's. Charles Trevelyan,

an officer with the East India Company asserted in a widely circulated tract- "

The multitudes who flock to our schools ... cannot return under the dominion of

the Brahmins. The spell has been forever broken. Hinduism is not a religion that

will bear examination... It gives away at once before the light of European

sciences."

 

J.N. Farquhar, a Scottish clergyman, preached in India from 1891 to 1923, during

which time he wrote a book called The Crown of Hinduism. In this work he says

that although Hinduism may have some good points, ultimately true salvation can

only be achieved through Christ, who is the ‘crown of Hinduism’.

 

Reverend William Ward, an English missionary, wrote a four-volume polemic in

which he characterized the Hindu faith as "a fabric of superstition" concocted

by Brahmins, and as "the most complete system of absolute oppression that

perhaps ever existed".

 

Richard Temple, a high officer, said in an 1883 speech to a London missionary

society:

" India presents the greatest of all fields of missionary exertion... India is a

country which of all others we are bound to enlighten with external truth...But

what is most important to you friends of missions, is this - that there is a

large population of aborigines, a people who are outside caste....If they are

attached, as they rapidly may be, to Christianity, they will form a nucleus

round which British power and influence may gather."

He addressed a mission in New York in bolder terms: "Thus India is like a

mighty bastion which is being battered by heavy artillery. We have given blow

after blow, and thud after thud, and the effect is not at first very remarkable;

but at last with a crash the mighty structure will come toppling down, and it is

our hope that someday the heathen religions of India will in like manner

succumb."

Indian religion was thus perceived by the British missionaries as an enemy

waiting to be conquered by the army of Jesus. It was a doctrine of Satan which

provided Christianity with devils to exorcise and which, in their view, was "at

best, work of human folly and at worst the outcome of a diabolic inspiration."

 

In the word of Charles Grant (1746-1823), Chairman of the East India Company:

"We cannot avoid recognizing in the people of Hindustan a race of men lamentably

degenerate and base...governed by malevolent and licentious passions... and sunk

in misery by their vices."

One Professor McKenzie, of Bombay found the ethics of India defective, illogical

and anti-social, lacking any philosophical foundation, nullified by abhorrent

ideas of asceticism and ritual and altogether inferior to the 'higher

spirituality' of Europe. He devoted most of his book 'Hindu Ethics' to upholding

this thesis and came to the conclusion that Vedic philosophical ideas, 'when

logically applied leave no room for ethics'; and that they prevent the

development of a strenuous moral life.'

 

All efforts were made by the missionaries to portray Hinduism as backwards,

illogical, debauched and perverse. As one preacher exclaimed, 'The curse of

India is the Hindoo religion. More than two hundred million people believe a

monkey mixture of mythology that is strangling the nation.' 'He who yearns for

God in India soon loses his head as well as his heart.'

 

The missionaries opposed the government’s efforts to take a neutral stand

towards Indian culture and worked with more zeal for the complete conversion of

the natives. Thus India became an arena for religious adventure.

 

The First Scholars: Sir William Jones Sir William Jones (1746-1794) was the

first Britisher to learn Sanskrit and study the Vedas. He was educated at Oxford

University and it was here that he studied law and also began his studies in

oriental languages, of which he is said to have mastered sixteen. After being

appointed as judge of the Supreme Court, Jones went to Calcutta in 1783. He

founded the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal and translated a number of Sanskrit

texts into English. Jones was not prone to criticize other religions, especially

the Vedic religion, which he respected and adored. He wrote –

"I am in love with Gopia, charmed with Crishen (Krishna), an enthusiastic

admirer of Raama and a devout adorer of Brihma (Brahma), Bishen (Vishnu),

Mahisher (Maheshwara); not to mention that Judishteir, Arjen, Corno

(Yudhishtira, Arjuna, Karna) and the other warriors of the M'hab'harat appear

greater in my eyes than Agamemnon, Ajax and Achilles apperaed when I first read

the Iliad"

However, Jones was a devout Christian and could not free himself of the

restraints of Biblical chronology. His theories of dating Indian history,

specifically Candragupta Maurya’s reign up to the invasions of India by

Alexander were certainly dictated to him through religious bias. He also

described the Srimad Bhagavatam as "a motley story" and claimed that it had it’s

roots in the Christian Gospels, which had been brought to India and, ‘repeated

to the Hindus, who ingrafted them on the old fable of Ce’sava, (Kesava)’. Of

course, this theory has been debunked since records of Krsna worship predate

Christ by centuries. (See Heliodorus Column)

In 1840 Jones was appointed Chief Justice in the British settlement of Fort

William. Here, in 1846, he translated into English the famous play ‘Sakuntala’

by Kalidasa and ‘The Code of Manu’ in 1851, the year of his death. After him,

his younger associate, Sir Henry Thomas Colebrooke, continued in his stead and

wrote many articles on Hinduism.

 

The eminent British historian James Mill (father of the philosopher John Stuart

Mill) who had published his voluminous History of British India in 1818 heavily

criticized Jones. Although Mill spoke no Indian languages, had never studied

Sanskrit, and had never been to India, his damning indictment of Indian culture

and religion had become a standard work for all Britishers who would serve in

India. Mill vehemently believed that India had never had a glorious past and

treated this as an historical fantasy. To him, Indian religion meant, ‘The

worship of the emblems of generative organs’ and ascribing to God, ‘…an immense

train of obscene acts.’ Suffice to say that he disagreed violently with Jones

for his ‘Hypothesis of a high state of civilization.’ Mill’s History of British

India was greatly influenced by the famous French missionary Abbe Dubois’s book

Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies. This work, which still enjoys a

considerable amount of popularity to this day, contains one chapter on Hindu

temples, wherein the Abbe writes: "Hindu imagination is such that it cannot be

excited except by what is monstrous and extravagant."

 

H.H. Wilson

Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860) has been described as ‘the greatest Sanskrit

scholar of his time’. He received his education in London and traveled to India

in the East India Companies medical service. He became the secretary of the

Asiatic Society of Bengal from 1811 to 1833 and published a Sanskrit to English

dictionary. He became Boden professor of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1833 and the

director of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1837. He translated the Visnu Purana,

Rg Veda and wrote books such as Lectures on the Religious and Philosophical

Systems of the Hindus. He edited a number of translations of eastern texts and

helped Mill compile his History of India, although later Wilson criticized

Mill’s historiography, stating – "Mill’s view of Hindu religion is full of very

serious defects, arising from inveterate prejudices and imperfect knowledge.

Every text, every circumstance, that makes against the Hindu character, is most

assiduously cited, and everything in its favor as carefully kept out of sight,

whilst a total neglect is displayed of the history of Hindu belief."

Wilson seemed somewhat of an enigma; on one hand he proposed that Britain should

restrain herself from forcing Christianity upon the Indians and forcing them to

reject their old traditions. Yet in the same breath he exclaimed:

 

"From the survey which has been submitted to you, you will perceive that the

practical religion of the Hindus is by no means a concentrated and compact

system, but a heterogeneous compound made up of various and not infrequently

incompatible ingredients, and that to a few ancient fragments it has made large

and unauthorized additions, most of which are of an exceedingly mischievous and

disgraceful nature. It is, however, of little avail yet to attempt to undeceive

the multitude; their superstition is based upon ignorance, and until the

foundation is taken away, the superstructure, however crazy and rotten, will

hold together."

Wilson’s view was that Christianity should replace the Vedic culture, and he

believed that full knowledge of Indian traditions would help effect that

conversion. Aware that the Indians would be reluctant to give up their culture

and religion, Wilson made the following remark:

"The whole tendency of brahminical education is to enforce dependence upon

authority – in the first instance upon the guru, the next upon the books. A

learned brahmana trusts solely to his learning; he never ventures upon

independent thought; he appeals to memory; he quotes texts without measure and

in unquestioning trust. It will be difficult to persuade him that the Vedas are

human and very ordinary writings, that the puranas are modern and unauthentic,

or even that the tantras are not entitled to respect. As long as he opposes

authority to reason, and stifles the workings of conviction by the dicta of a

reputed sage, little impression can be made upon his understanding. Certain it

is, therefore, that he will have recourse to his authorities, and it is

therefore important to show that his authorities are worthless."

Wilson felt hopeful that by inspired, diligent effort the "specious" system of

Vedic thought would be "shown to be fallacious and false by the Ithuriel spear

of Christian truth. He also was ready to award a prize of two hundred pounds

"…for the best refutation of the Hindu religious system." Wilson also wrote a

detailed method for exploiting the native Vedic psychology by use of a bogus

guru-disciple relationship.

Recently Wilson has been accused of invalid scholarship. Natalie P.R. Sirkin has

presented documented evidence, which shows that Wilson was a plagiarist. Most of

his most important works were collected manuscripts of deceased an author that

he published under his own names, as well as works done without research.

 

Thomas Babbington Macaulay

Thomas Babbington Macaulay (1800-59) is best known for introducing English

education in India. Though not a missionary himself, he believed that

Christianity held the key to the problem of curing India’s ignorance.

Although he confessed to have no knowledge of Sanskrit and Arabic, he did not

hesitate to belittle the religious works of the East. In 1838 there was some

debate on India’s Supreme Ruling Council, chaired by Lord Bentinck, as to the

value of teaching Sanskrit and India’s classical literatures, as well as

regional languages, in schools to be established by the British for the

education of the Indian people. A few members of the Council were mildly in

favor of it, but the elegantly expressed, fully ethnocentric and Philistine view

of Macaulay prevailed. In his Education Minute, Macaulay wrote that he couldn’t

find one Orientalist "…who could deny that a single shelf of good European

library is worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia…Are we to teach

false history, false astronomy, false medicine because we find them in company

with false religion? The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is,

indeed, fully admitted by those members of the Committee who support the

Oriental plan of education…The superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely

immeasurable."

 

He went on to make the outrageous assertion that "…all the historical

information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit

language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgements

used in preparatory schools in England."

He then made the following creatively expressed, though uneducated assertion as

his central statement of belief –

"The question now before us is simply whether, when it is in our power to teach

the (English) language, we shall teach language in which…there are no books on

any subject which deserve to be compared to our own…whether, when we can

patronize sound philosophy and true history, we shall countenance at the public

expense medical doctrines which would disgrace an English farrier, astronomy

which would move laughter in girls at an English boarding school, history

abounding in kings thirty feet high and reigns thirty-thousand years long, and

geography made up of seas of treacle and rivers of butter… I would at once stop

the printing of Arabic and Sanscrit books, I

would abolish the Madrassa and the Sanscrit (sic) college at Calcutta."

 

In a letter to his father in 1836, Macaulay exclaimed "...It is my belief that

if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolator

among the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be

effected without any efforts to proselytize, without the smallest interference

with religious liberty, by natural operation of knowledge and reflection. I

heartily rejoice in the project."

 

In other words, Lord Macaulay believed that by knowledge and reflection, the

Hindus would turn their backs upon the religion of their forefathers and take up

Christianity. In order to do this, he planned to use the strength of the

educated Indians against them by using their scholarship to uproot their own

traditions, or in his own words - " Indian in blood and color, but English in

taste, in opinion, in morals, in intellect." He firmly believed that, "No Hindu

who has received an English education ever remains sincerely attached to his

religion."

To further this end Macaulay wanted a competent scholar who could interpret the

Vedic scriptures in such a manner that the newly educated Indian youth would see

how barbaric their native superstitions actually were. Macaulay finally found

such a scholar in Fredrich Max Mueller.

 

Fredrich Max Mueller

Fredrich Max Mueller (1823-1900) was born in Dessau and educated in Leipzig,

where he learned Sanskrit and translated the Hitopadesa of Pandita Visnu Sarma

before coming to England in 1846. Since he was penniless, he was cared for by

Baron von Bunsen, the Prussian ambassador to England who basked in the

childishly pleasant thought of converting the whole world to Christianity. It

was in London that Max Mueller met Macaulay who was still on the look out for

his ‘right man’.

Mueller was first commissioned by the East India Company to translate the Rg

Veda into English. The company agreed to pay the young Mueller 4 Shillings for

each page that was ready to print. He later moved to Oxford where he translated

a number of books on Eastern religion. His magnum opus was his series The Sacred

Books of the East, a fifty volume work which he began editing in 1875. It goes

without saying that by the end of his career, Mueller had amassed a comfortable

sum of money.

It is ironic that the man who has Bhavans named after him all over India and is

treated with so much veneration there, probably did the most damage to uproot

Vedic culture.

At the time of his death he was venerated by none other than Lokamanya Tilak as

‘Veda-maharishi Moksha-mula Bhatta of Go-tirtha’ (Oxford).

Although Mueller is on record as extoling India’s ancient wisdom, his letters

(printed in two volumes) tell an entirely different story. Generally personal

letters give a true picture of the writer's inner mind. We present herein some

of Mueller’s many statements in which his true view on Indian culture is

glaringly obvious "History seems to teach that the whole human race required a

gradual education before, in the fullness of time, it could be admitted to the

truths of Christianity. All the fallacies of human reason had to be exhausted,

before the light of a high truth could

meet with ready acceptance. The ancient religions of the world were but the milk

of nature, which was in due time to be succeeded by the bread of life.... 'The

religion of Buddha has spread far beyond the limits of the Aryan world, and to

our limited vision, it may seem to have retarded the advent of Christianity

among a large portion of the human race. But in the sight of Him with whom a

thousand years are but as one day, that religion, like the ancient religions of

the world, may have but served to prepare the way of Christ, by helping through

its very errors to strengthen and to deepen the ineradicable yearning of the

human heart after the truth of God."

"Large number of Vedic hymns are childish in the extreme; tedious, low,

commonplace."

"Nay, they (the Vedas) contain, by the side of simple, natural, childish

thoughts, many ideas which to us sound modern, or secondary and tertiary."

"...this edition of mine and the translation of the Vedas, will hereafter tell

to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in

that country. It (the Rg Veda) is the root of their religion and to show them

what the root is, I am sure, the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from

it during the last three thousand years"

"Hinduism was dying or dead because it belonged to a stratum of thought which

was long buried beneath the foot of modern man. He continued: " The worship of

Shiva, Vishnu, and other popular deities was of the same and in many cases of a

more degraded and savage character than the worship of Jupiter, Apollo or

Minerva. 'A religion', he said ' may linger on for a long time, it may be

accepted my large masses of the people, because it is there, and there is

nothing better. But when a religion has ceased to produce defenders of the

faith, prophets, champions, martyrs, it has ceased to live, in the true sense of

the word; and in that sense the old orthodox Brahmanism has ceased to live for

more than a thousand years." (Speech at the Christians Missions in Westminster

Abbey in 1873)

 

In 1876, while writing to a friend, Mueller said that he would not like to go to

India as a missionary since that would make him dependent upon the government.

His preference was this "I would like to live for ten years quite quietly and

learn the language, try to make friends, and then see if I was fit to take part

in this work, by means of which the old mischief of Indian priestcraft could be

overthrown and the way opened for the entrance of simple Christian

teaching…India is much riper for Christianity than Rome or Greece were at the

time of Saint Paul."

"The rotten tree for some time had artificial supports ...but if the English man

comes to see that the tree must fall...he will mind no sacrifice either of blood

or of land...I would like to lay down my life, or at least lend my hand to bring

about this struggle"

 

"I do not claim for the ancient Indian literature any more that I should

willingly concede to the fables and

traditions and songs of savage nations. I simply say that in the Veda we have a

nearer approach to a beginning, and an intelligent beginning, than in the wild

invocations of the Hottentotes and Bushmen, "

 

"This edition of mine and the translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a

great extent... the fate of India, and on the growth of millions of souls in

that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root

is, I feel sure, the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during

the last 3000 years."

 

When Duke of Argyll was appointed Secretary of State for India in December 1868,

Max Mueller wrote to him-

 

"India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again and that

second conquest should be a conquest by education…the ancient religion of India

is doomed, and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?"

 

In another letter, Mueller wrote to his son:

 

'Would you say that any one sacred book is superior to all others in the world?

.....I say the New Testament, after that, I should place the Koran, which in its

moral teachings, is hardly more than a later edition of the New Testament. Then

would follow according to my opinion the Old Testament, the Southern Buddhist

Tripitaka, the Tao-te-king of Lao-tze, the Kings of Confucius, the Veda and the

Avesta.' 15

 

In an audacious letter to N.K. Majumdar, Mueller wrote

–

'Tell me some of your chief difficulties that prevent you and your countrymen

from openly following Christ, and when I write to you I shall do my best to

explain how I and many who agree with me have met them and solved them...From my

point of view, India, at least the best part of it, is already converted to

Christianity. You want no persuasion to become a follower of Christ. Then make

up your mind to work for yourself. Unite your flock - to hold them together and

prevent them from straying. The bridge has been built for you by those who came

before you. STEP BOLDLY FORWARD, it will break under you, and you will find many

friends to welcome you on the other shore and among them none more delighted

that you old friend and fellow labourer F. Max-Muller.'

 

Mueller harshly criticised the view of the German scholar, Dr. Spiegel, who

claimed that the Biblical theory of the creation of the world is borrowed from

the ancient religion of the Persians or Iranians. Stung by this statement Max

Mueller writes:

 

‘A writer like Dr. Spiegel should know that he can expect no money; nay, he

should himself wish for no mercy, but invite the heaviest artillery against the

floating battery which he has launched in the troubled waters of Biblical

criticism.’

 

Dr. Spiegel was not the only target of Mueller’s bigotry. In 1926 the French

scholar Louis Jacolliot, Chief Judge in Chandranagar, wrote a book called 'La

Bible dans l'Inde'. Within that book, Jacolliot theorised that all the main

philosophies of the western world originated from India, which he glorified thus

–

 

'Land of ancient India! Cradle of Humanity. hail! Hail revered motherland whom

centuries of brutal invasions have not yet buried under the dust of oblivion.

Hail, Fatherland of faith, of love, of poetry and of science, may we hail a

revival of thy past in our Western future.'

 

Mueller said while reviewing Jacolliot’s book that, 'The author seems to have

been taken in by the Brahmins of India.'

 

Mueller may also be credited with the popularization of the Aryan racial theory,

Writing for the Anthropological Review in 1870, Mueller classified the human

race into seven categories on an ascending scale - with the Aborigines on the

lowest rung and the "Aryan" type supreme. However, he recanted later on when his

professional reputation as a Sanskrit scholar was in peril.

 

"I have declared again and again that if I say Aryas, I mean neither blood nor

bones, nor hair, nor skull; I mean simply those who speak an Aryan language...to

me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is

as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a

brachycephalic grammar."

Although Mueller cannot be placed in the same category as inexperienced

Indologists such as Christian Lassen and Albrecht Weber whose Aryan race

conceptions were chiefly fueled by their ardent German nationalism, Mueller’s

motivations were just as diabolical. Mueller had been paid to misinterpret the

Vedic literatures in order to make the Indians look, at best silly, and at

worst, bestial.

 

However, not everyone was taken in by the academic prowess of the man who was

known as ‘Moksamula Bhatta’. Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of the Arya

Samaja, was so disgusted with the level of Mueller’s knowledge of Sanskrit that

he likened him to a "toddler learning to walk". He wrote:

 

"Prof. Max Mueller has been able to scribble out something by the help of the so

called 'tikas' or paraphrases of the Vedas current in India."

 

Another revealing incident of Mueller’s glaring ignorance was when a brahmana

came from India to meet the famous Sanskrit scholar. When he came face to face

with Mueller and spoke to him in chaste Sanskrit, Mueller admitted that he

couldn’t understand what the gentleman was saying!

 

No wonder Schopenhauer acerbically said, "I cannot resist a certain suspicion

that our Sanskrit scholars do not understand their texts any better than the

higher class of school boys their Greek and Latin."

 

Sir Monier Monier-Williams and the Boden Chair

Sir Monier Monier-Williams (1819-1899) was born in Bombay, attending the East

India Company’s college and later teaching there. After the death of H.H.

Wilson, Monier-Williams became Boden Professor of Sanskrit in Oxford University

where he delivered an address wherein he stated -

 

‘I must draw attention to the fact that I am only the second occupant of the

Boden Chair, and that its Founder, Colonel Boden, stated most explicitly in his

will (dated August 15, 1811 A.D.) that the special object of his munificent

bequest was to promote the translation of Scriptures into Sanskrit; so as to

enable his countrymen to proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to

the Christian religion.’

'Brahmanism, therefore, must die out. In point of fact, false ideas on the most

ordinary scientific subjects are so mixed up with its doctrines that the

commonest education - the simplest lesson in geography - without the aid of

Christianity must inevitably in the end sap its foundations.'

'When the walls of the mighty fortress of Brahmanism are encircled, undermined,

and finally stormed by the solders of the cross, the victory of Christianity

must be signal and complete.'

 

In 1870 Monier-Williams wrote a book based on a lecture called 'The Study of

Sanskrit in Relation to Missionary work in India' which was obviously written in

order to promote Christianity and discredit the Vedic scriptures. He also wrote

another work in 1894 called ‘Hinduism which was published and distributed by the

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. He is known mostly for his

‘Sanskrit-English Dictionary’ and for spending twenty-five years to founding an

institution in Oxford disseminating information on Indian religion, philosophy

and culture.

 

In is interesting to note that Monier-Williams disagreed with the ‘evolution to

Christianity’ theory of Max Mueller. Referring to this he wrote –

 

‘There can be no doubt of a greater mistake than to force these non-Christian

bibles into conformity with some scientific theory of development and then point

to Christian’s Holy Bible as the crowning product of religious evolution. So far

from this, these non-Christian bibles are all developments in the wrong

direction. They all begin with some flashes of true light and end in utter

darkness.’

 

‘It seems to me that our missionaries are already sufficiently convinced of the

necessity of studying these works, and of making themselves conversant with the

false creeds they have to fight against. How could an army of invaders have any

chance of success in an enemy’s country without a knowledge of the position and

strength of its fortresses, and without knowing how to turn the batteries they

may capture against the for?'

 

German Indologists:

In 1875, August Wilhelm von Schlegal (brother of the philosopher Friedrich

Schlegel) became the first professor of Sanskrit in the Bonn University of

Germany. Previously, in 1865 he had written a work entitled 'Upon the languages

and Wisdom of the Hindus'. Both the Schlegal brothers had a great love for

Sanskrit. Another Sanskritist Hern Wilhelm von Humboldt became the collaborator

of August Schlegel whose edition of the Bhagavad-gita directed his attention to

its study. In 1884 he wrote to a friend saying: 'It is perhaps the deepest and

loftiest thing the world has to show'. At that time Arthur Schopenhauer

(1845-1917), the great German philosopher, read the Latin translation of the

Upanisads which were translated by a French writer Anquetil du Perron from the

Persian translation of Prince Dara Shikoh named as ‘Sirre-Akbar’(The Great

Secret). He was so impressed by their philosophy that he called them 'The

production of the highest human wisdom', and considered them to contain

superhuman conceptions. The Upanisads was a great source of inspiration to

Schopenhauer, and writing about them he said:

 

'It is the most satisfying and elevating reading (with the exception of the

original text) which is possible in the world;' it has been the solace of my

life and will be the solace of my death.’

 

It is well-known that the book 'Oupnekhat' (Upanisad) always lay open on his

table and he invariably studied it before sleeping.at night. He called the

opening up of Sanskrit literature 'the greatest gift of our century', and

predicted that the philosophy and knowledge of the Upanisads would becomes the

cherished faith of the West.

 

Moriz Winternitz

Unfortunately, not all scholars appreciated the timeless wisdom of the Vedas and

Upanisads. Some scholars were so convinced of the superiority of Christianity

and western philosophy that they had no qualms in shamelessly expressing their

feelings publicly.

In 1925 The Professor of Indian Studies at the German University of Prague,

Moriz Winternitz (1863-1937), denounced Schopenhaur for his admiration of the

Upanisads with the following words - 'Yet I believe, it is a wild exaggeration

when Schopenhauer says that the teaching of the Upanishads represents 'the fruit

of the highest human knowledge and wisdom' and contains 'almost superhuman

conceptions the originators of which can hardly be regarded as mere mortals...'

 

On the subject of the Vedas, Winternitz had this to say -

 

'It is true, the authors of these hymns rise but extremely seldom to the exalted

flights and deep fervour of, say, religious poetry of the Hebrews.'

 

Rudolph Roth

A fellow student of Mueller’s was the German indologist, Rudolph Roth. Both Roth

and Mueller studied together under the tutelage of Eugene Burnouf, the eminent

French Sanskrit Professor. Roth wrote a thesis on the Vedic literatures called,

Zur Literatur und Geschichte des Veda, and in 1909 he published his edition of

Yaksa’s Nirukta dictionary. However, Roth’s works were peppered with German

ultra-nationalism and he asserted that by means of the German science of

philology, Vedic mantras could be interpreted much better than with the help of

Nirukta .Roth wrote many other things in this haughty vein. One such disdainful

statement he made was:

 

‘A qualified European is better off to arrive at the true meaning of the Rg Veda

than a brahmana’s interpretation.’