Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 187)

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SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 187

 

 

d) Western Study of the Indian Tradition

1. The Pioneering Study of Sanskrit Texts by Western Scholars

About a century ago there was an English judge in Bengal, Sir William Jones. In India, you know, there are Muslims and Hindus. The Hindus were the original people and the Muslims came and conquered them and ruled over them for seven hundred years. These have been many other conquests in India; and, whenever there is a new conquest, the criminal laws of the country are changed. The criminal law is always that of the conquering nation, but the civil law remains the same. So when the English conquered India they changed the criminal law, but the civil law remained. The judges, however, were Englishmen and did not know the language of the country in which the civil laws were written, and so they had to take the help of interpreters, lawyers of India, and so on. And when any question about Indian law arose these scholars would be referred to.

One of these judges, Sir William Jones, was a very ripe scholar and he wanted to go to the fountainhead himself, to take up the language himself and study it instead of relying upon these interpreters who, for instance, might be bribed to give any verdict. So he began to study the law of the Gentoos, as the Hindus were called. Gentoo is probably a form of the word gentile, used by the Portuguese and Spaniards - or the word "heathen" as you call it now. When the judge began to translate some of the books into English he found that it was very hard to translate them correctly into English at first hand. What was his surprise when he found that if he translated them first into Latin and next into English, it was much easier. Then he found in translating that a large number of Sanskrit words were almost the same as Latin. It was he who introduced the study of Sanskrit to the Europeans. Then, as the Germans were rising up in scholarship - as well as the French - they took up the language and began to study it.

With their tremendous power of analysis the Germans found that there is a similarity between Sanskrit and all the European languages. Among the ancient languages Greek was the nearest to it in resemblance. Later it was found that there is a language called Lithuanian, spoken… on the shores of the Baltic - an independent kingdom at that time and unconnected with Russia. The language of the Lithuanians is strikingly similar to Sanskrit. Some of the Lithuanian sentences are less changed from Sanskrit forms than the northern Indian languages. Thus it was found that there is an intimate connection between all the various languages spoken in Europe and the two Asiatic languages - Persian and Sanskrit. May theories are built upon it as to how this connection came. Theories were built up every day and every day smashed. There is no knowing where they are going to stop.

Then came the theory that there was one race in ancient times who called themselves Aryans. They found in Sanskrit literature that there was a people who spoke Sanskrit and called themselves Aryans, and this is mentioned also in Persian literature. Thus they founded the theory that there was in ancient times a nation who called themselves Aryans and who spoke Sanskrit and lived in Central Asia. This nation, they said, broke into several branches and migrated to Europe and Persia; and wherever they went they took their own languages. German, Greek and French are but the remnants of an old tongue, and Sanskrit is the most highly developed of these languages.

These are theories and have not been proved yet; they are mere conjectures and guesses. Many difficulties come in the way - for instance, how the Indians are dark and the Europeans are fair. Even within the same nations speaking these languages - in England itself - there are many with yellow hair and many with black. Thus there are many questions which have not yet been settled.

But this is certain, that all the nations of Europe except the Basques, the Hungarians, and the [Finns] - excepting these, all the Europeans, all the northern Indians and the Persians speak branches of the same language. Vast masses of literature are existing in all these Aryan tongues: in Greek and Latin, in modern European languages - German, English, French - in ancient Persian, in modern Persian and in Sanskrit.

But in the first place, Sanskrit literature alone is a very big mass. Although perhaps three-fourths of it has been destroyed and lost through successive invasions yet, I think, the sum total of the amount of literature in Sanskrit would outbalance in number of books any three or four European languages taken together. No one knows how many books there yet are and where they are, because it is the most ancient of the Aryan languages.(23)

The Vedas were written in a peculiar, archaic Sanskrit and for a long time - even today - it is thought by many European antiquarians that these Vedas were not written, but were handed down from father to son, learned by rote and thus preserved. Within the last few years opinion is veering round and they are beginning to think that they must have been written in most ancient times.

Of course, they will have to make theories in this way. Theory after theory will have to be built up and destroyed until we reach truth. This is quite natural. but when the subject is Indian or Egyptian, the Christian philosophers rush in to make theories; while, if the subject is nearer home, they think twice first. That is why they fail so much and have to keep on making fresh theories every five years. but this much is true: that this mass of literature, whether written or not, was conveyed; and not only that, but is at the present day conveyed by word of mouth. This is thought to be holy.(24)