The evidence of the conspiracy

[Guest guest]

I hope these extracts are brief enough to be read. They are from my book,

compiled from various sources, especially from the collections of letters

(published).

 

Macaulay, who formulated the Indian education policy in the 1830s, wrote in 1836

a letter to his father: "...It is my belief that if our plans of education are

followed up, there would not be a single idolater among the respectable classes

in Bengal within the span of thirty years... 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." He planned to use the strength of the educated Indians against

Hinduism by creating a class that would be "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."

 

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 idolater

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."

 

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."

 

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

where he learned Sanskrit and translated the Hitopadesa of Pandita Vishnu Sharma

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’.

 

Although Mueller is on record as extolling 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."

"...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,"

 

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.”

 

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.

 

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 (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.

 

PKD