A fake passage attributed to Macaulay has long been circulated on the internet, and despite many refutations, this continues. It is said to be his address to the British Parliament, but Macaulay was in India at the time. The date is actually of his minute on education. The full minute shows his negative thinking about India, and his belief in the superiority of Western culture and literature. Of course one disagrees with his views. But is that any reason to write a fake passage?
The fake passage is given below:
Lord Macaulay’s address to the British Parliament 2 February 1835
‘I have travelled across the length and breadth of the country of India and I have never seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture, and will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.’
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The three most relevant passages of his minute are given here, the full text is attached below.
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Most relevant passages from Macaulay's Minute:
[10] I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or
Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct
estimate of their value. I have read translations of
the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have
conversed, both here and at home, with men
distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern
tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental
learning at the valuation of the orientalists
themselves. I have never found one among them who
could deny that a single shelf of a good European
library was worth the whole native literature of India
and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western
literature is indeed fully admitted by those members
of the committee who support the oriental plan of
education.
[11] It will hardly be disputed, I suppose,
that the department of literature in which the Eastern
writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never
met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that
the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to
that of the great European nations. But when we pass
from works of imagination to works in which facts are
recorded and general principles investigated, the
superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely
immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say
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 abridgments used at preparatory
schools in England. In every branch of physical or
moral philosophy, the relative position of the two
nations is nearly the same.
[12] How then stands the case? We have to
educate a people who cannot at present be educated by
means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some
foreign language. The claims of our own language it is
hardly necessary to recapitulate. It stands
pre-eminent even among the languages of the West. It
abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the
noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us, --with
models of every species of eloquence, --with
historical composition, which, considered merely as
narratives, have seldom been surpassed, and which,
considered as vehicles of ethical and political
instruction, have never been equaled-- with just and
lively representations of human life and human nature,
--with the most profound speculations on metaphysics,
morals, government, jurisprudence, trade, --with full
and correct information respecting every experimental
science which tends to preserve the health, to
increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect of
man. Whoever knows that language has ready access to
all the vast intellectual wealth which all the wisest
nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the
course of ninety generations. It may safely be said
that the literature now extant in that language is of
greater value than all the literature which three
hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of
the world together. Nor is this all. In India, English
is the language spoken by the ruling class. It is
spoken by the higher class of natives at the seats of
Government. It is likely to become the language of
commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the
language of two great European communities which are
rising, the one in the south of Africa, the other in
Australia, --communities which are every year becoming
more important and more closely connected with our
Indian empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value
of our literature, or at the particular situation of
this country, we shall see the strongest reason to
think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue
is that which would be the most useful to our native
subjects.
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Minute by the Hon'ble T. B. Macaulay, dated the 2nd
February 1835.
[1] As it seems to be the opinion of some of
the gentlemen who compose the Committee of Public
Instruction that the course which they have hitherto
pursued was strictly prescribed by the British
Parliament in 1813 and as, if that opinion be correct,
a legislative act will be necessary to warrant a
change, I have thought it right to refrain from taking
any part in the preparation of the adverse statements
which are.now before us, and to reserve what I had to
say on the subject till it should come before me as a
Member of the Council of India.
[2] It does not appear to me that the Act of
Parliament can by any art of contraction be made to
bear the meaning which has been assigned to it. It
contains nothing about the particular languages or
sciences which are to be studied. A sum is set apart
"for the revival and promotion of literature, and the
encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for
the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the
sciences among the inhabitants of the British
territories." It is argued, or rather taken for
granted, that by literature the Parliament can have
meant only Arabic and Sanscrit literature; that they
never would have given the honourable appellation of
"a learned native" to a native who was familiar with
the poetry of Milton, the metaphysics of Locke, and
the physics of Newton; but that they meant to
designate by that name only such persons as might have
studied in the sacred books of the Hindoos all the
uses of cusa-grass, and all the mysteries of
absorption into the Deity. This does not appear to be
a very satisfactory interpretation. To take a parallel
case: Suppose that the Pacha of Egypt, a country once
superior in knowledge to the nations of Europe, but
now sunk far below them, were to appropriate a sum for
the purpose "of reviving and promoting literature, and
encouraging learned natives of Egypt," would any body
infer that he meant the youth of his Pachalik to give
years to the study of hieroglyphics, to search into
all the doctrines disguised under the fable of Osiris,
and to ascertain with all possible accuracy the ritual
with which cats and onions were anciently adored?
Would he be justly charged with inconsistency if,
instead of employing his young subjects in deciphering
obelisks, he were to order them to be instructed in
the English and French languages, and in all the
sciences to which those languages are the chief keys?
[3] The words on which the supporters of the
old system rely do not bear them out, and other words
follow which seem to be quite decisive on the other
side. This lakh of rupees is set apart not only for
"reviving literature in India," the phrase on which
their whole interpretation is founded, but also "for
the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the
sciences among the inhabitants of the British
territories"-- words which are alone sufficient to
authorize all the changes for which I contend.
[4] If the Council agree in my construction no
legislative act will be necessary. If they differ from
me, I will propose a short act rescinding that I
clause of the Charter of 1813 from which the
difficulty arises.
[5] The argument which I have been considering
affects only the form of proceeding. But the admirers
of the oriental system of education have used another
argument, which, if we admit it to be valid, is
decisive against all change. They conceive that the
public faith is pledged to the present system, and
that to alter the appropriation of any of the funds
which have hitherto been spent in encouraging the
study of Arabic and Sanscrit would be downright
spoliation. It is not easy to understand by what
process of reasoning they can have arrived at this
conclusion. The grants which are made from the public
purse for the encouragement of literature differ in no
respect from the grants which are made from the same
purse for other objects of real or supposed utility.
We found a sanitarium on a spot which we suppose to be
healthy. Do we thereby pledge ourselves to keep a
sanitarium there if the result should not answer our
expectations? We commence the erection of a pier. Is
it a violation of the public faith to stop the works,
if we afterwards see reason to believe that the
building will be useless? The rights of property are
undoubtedly sacred. But nothing endangers those rights
so much as the practice, now unhappily too common, of
attributing them to things to which they do not
belong. Those who would impart to abuses the sanctity
of property are in truth imparting to the institution
of property the unpopularity and the fragility of
abuses. If the Government has given to any person a
formal assurance-- nay, if the Government has excited
in any person's mind a reasonable expectation-- that
he shall receive a certain income as a teacher or a
learner of Sanscrit or Arabic, I would respect that
person's pecuniary interests. I would rather err on
the side of liberality to individuals than suffer the
public faith to be called in question. But to talk of
a Government pledging itself to teach certain
languages and certain sciences, though those languages
may become useless, though those sciences may be
exploded, seems to me quite unmeaning. There is not a
single word in any public instrument from which it can
be inferred that the Indian Government ever intended
to give any pledge on this subject, or ever considered
the destination of these funds as unalterably fixed.
But, had it been otherwise, I should have denied the
competence of our predecessors to bind us by any
pledge on such a subject. Suppose that a Government
had in the last century enacted in the most solemn
manner that all its subjects should, to the end of
time, be inoculated for the small-pox, would that
Government be bound to persist in the practice after
Jenner's discovery? These promises of which nobody
claims the performance, and from which nobody can
grant a release, these vested rights which vest in
nobody, this property without proprietors, this
robbery which makes nobody poorer, may be comprehended
by persons of higher faculties than mine. I consider
this plea merely as a set form of words, regularly
used both in England and in India, in defence of every
abuse for which no other plea can be set up.
[6] I hold this lakh of rupees to be quite at
the disposal of the Governor-General in Council for
the purpose of promoting learning in India in any way
which may be thought most advisable. I hold his
Lordship to be quite as free to direct that it shall
no longer be employed in encouraging Arabic and
Sanscrit, as he is to direct that the reward for
killing tigers in Mysore shall be diminished, or that
no more public money shall be expended on the
chaunting at the cathedral.
[7] We now come to the gist of the matter. We
have a fund to be employed as Government shall direct
for the intellectual improvement of the people of this
country. The simple question is, what is the most
useful way of employing it?
[8] All parties seem to be agreed on one
point, that the dialects commonly spoken among the
natives of this part of India contain neither literary
nor scientific information, and are moreover so poor
and rude that, until they are enriched from some other
quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable
work into them. It seems to be admitted on all sides,
that the intellectual improvement of those classes of
the people who have the means of pursuing higher
studies can at present be affected only by means of
some language not vernacular amongst them.
[9] What then shall that language be? One-half
of the committee maintain that it should be the
English. The other half strongly recommend the Arabic
and Sanscrit. The whole question seems to me to be--
which language is the best worth knowing?
[10] I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or
Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct
estimate of their value. I have read translations of
the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have
conversed, both here and at home, with men
distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern
tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental
learning at the valuation of the orientalists
themselves. I have never found one among them who
could deny that a single shelf of a good European
library was worth the whole native literature of India
and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western
literature is indeed fully admitted by those members
of the committee who support the oriental plan of
education.
[11] It will hardly be disputed, I suppose,
that the department of literature in which the Eastern
writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never
met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that
the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to
that of the great European nations. But when we pass
from works of imagination to works in which facts are
recorded and general principles investigated, the
superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely
immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say
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 abridgments used at preparatory
schools in England. In every branch of physical or
moral philosophy, the relative position of the two
nations is nearly the same.
[12] How then stands the case? We have to
educate a people who cannot at present be educated by
means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some
foreign language. The claims of our own language it is
hardly necessary to recapitulate. It stands
pre-eminent even among the languages of the West. It
abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the
noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us, --with
models of every species of eloquence, --with
historical composition, which, considered merely as
narratives, have seldom been surpassed, and which,
considered as vehicles of ethical and political
instruction, have never been equaled-- with just and
lively representations of human life and human nature,
--with the most profound speculations on metaphysics,
morals, government, jurisprudence, trade, --with full
and correct information respecting every experimental
science which tends to preserve the health, to
increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect of
man. Whoever knows that language has ready access to
all the vast intellectual wealth which all the wisest
nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the
course of ninety generations. It may safely be said
that the literature now extant in that language is of
greater value than all the literature which three
hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of
the world together. Nor is this all. In India, English
is the language spoken by the ruling class. It is
spoken by the higher class of natives at the seats of
Government. It is likely to become the language of
commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the
language of two great European communities which are
rising, the one in the south of Africa, the other in
Australia, --communities which are every year becoming
more important and more closely connected with our
Indian empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value
of our literature, or at the particular situation of
this country, we shall see the strongest reason to
think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue
is that which would be the most useful to our native
subjects.
[13] The question now before us is simply
whether, when it is in our power to teach this
language, we shall teach languages in which, by
universal confession, there are no books on any
subject which deserve to be compared to our own,
whether, when we can teach European science, we shall
teach systems which, by universal confession, wherever
they differ from those of Europe differ for the worse,
and 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 with kings thirty feet high and reigns
thirty thousand years long, and geography made of seas
of treacle and seas of butter.
[14] We are not without experience to guide
us. History furnishes several analogous cases, and
they all teach the same lesson. There are, in modern
times, to go no further, two memorable instances of a
great impulse given to the mind of a whole society, of
prejudices overthrown, of knowledge diffused, of taste
purified, of arts and sciences planted in countries
which had recently been ignorant and barbarous.
[15] The first instance to which I refer is
the great revival of letters among the Western nations
at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth century. At that time almost everything that
was worth reading was contained in the writings of the
ancient Greeks and Romans. Had our ancestors acted as
the Committee of Public Instruction has hitherto
noted, had they neglected the language of Thucydides
and Plato, and the language of Cicero and Tacitus, had
they confined their attention to the old dialects of
our own island, had they printed nothing and taught
nothing at the universities but chronicles in
Anglo-Saxon and romances in Norman French, --would
England ever have been what she now is? What the Greek
and Latin were to the contemporaries of More and
Ascham, our tongue is to the people of India. The
literature of England is now more valuable than that
of classical antiquity. I doubt whether the Sanscrit
literature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and
Norman progenitors. In some departments-- in history
for example-- I am certain that it is much less so.
[16] Another instance may be said to be still
before our eyes. Within the last hundred and twenty
years, a nation which had previously been in a state
as barbarous as that in which our ancestors were
before the Crusades has gradually emerged from the
ignorance in which it was sunk, and has taken its
place among civilized communities. I speak of Russia.
There is now in that country a large educated class
abounding with persons fit to serve the State in the
highest functions, and in nowise inferior to the most
accomplished men who adorn the best circles of Paris
and London. There is reason to hope that this vast
empire which, in the time of our grandfathers, was
probably behind the Punjab, may in the time of our
grandchildren, be pressing close on France and Britain
in the career of improvement. And how was this change
effected? Not by flattering national prejudices; not
by feeding the mind of the young Muscovite with the
old women's stories which his rude fathers had
believed; not by filling his head with lying legends
about St. Nicholas; not by encouraging him to study
the great question, whether the world was or not
created on the 13th of September; not by calling him
"a learned native" when he had mastered all these
points of knowledge; but by teaching him those foreign
languages in which the greatest mass of information
had been laid up, and thus putting all that
information within his reach. The languages of western
Europe civilised Russia. I cannot doubt that they will
do for the Hindoo what they have done for the Tartar.
[17] And what are the arguments against that
course which seems to be alike recommended by theory
and by experience? It is said that we ought to secure
the co-operation of the native public, and that we can
do this only by teaching Sanscrit and Arabic.
[18] I can by no means admit that, when a
nation of high intellectual attainments undertakes to
superintend the education of a nation comparatively
ignorant, the learners are absolutely to prescribe the
course which is to be taken by the teachers. It is not
necessary however to say anything on this subject. For
it is proved by unanswerable evidence, that we are not
at present securing the co-operation of the natives.
It would be bad enough to consult their intellectual
taste at the expense of their intellectual health. But
we are consulting neither. We are withholding from
them the learning which is palatable to them. We are
forcing on them the mock learning which they nauseate.
[19] This is proved by the fact that we are
forced to pay our Arabic and Sanscrit students while
those who learn English are willing to pay us. All the
declamations in the world about the love and reverence
of the natives for their sacred dialects will never,
in the mind of any impartial person, outweigh this
undisputed fact, that we cannot find in all our vast
empire a single student who will let us teach him
those dialects, unless we will pay him.
[20] I have now before me the accounts of the
Mudrassa for one month, the month of December, 1833.
The Arabic students appear to have been seventy-seven
in number. All receive stipends from the public. The
whole amount paid to them is above 500 rupees a month.
On the other side of the account stands the following
item:
Deduct amount realized from the out-students
of English for the months of May, June, and July
last-- 103 rupees.
[21] I have been told that it is merely from
want of local experience that I am surprised at these
phenomena, and that it is not the fashion for students
in India to study at their own charges. This only
confirms me in my opinions. Nothing is more certain
than that it never can in any part of the world be
necessary to pay men for doing what they think
pleasant or profitable. India is no exception to this
rule. The people of India do not require to be paid
for eating rice when they are hungry, or for wearing
woollen cloth in the cold season. To come nearer to
the case before us: --The children who learn their
letters and a little elementary arithmetic from the
village schoolmaster are not paid by him. He is paid
for teaching them. Why then is it necessary to pay
people to learn Sanscrit and Arabic? Evidently because
it is universally felt that the Sanscrit and Arabic
are languages the knowledge of which does not
compensate for the trouble of acquiring them. On all
such subjects the state of the market is the detective
test.
[22] Other evidence is not wanting, if other
evidence were required. A petition was presented last
year to the committee by several ex-students of the
Sanscrit College. The petitioners stated that they had
studied in the college ten or twelve years, that they
had made themselves acquainted with Hindoo literature
and science, that they had received certificates of
proficiency. And what is the fruit of all this?
"Notwithstanding such testimonials," they say, "we
have but little prospect of bettering our condition
without the kind assistance of your honourable
committee, the indifference with which we are
generally looked upon by our countrymen leaving no
hope of encouragement and assistance from them." They
therefore beg that they may be recommended to the
Governor-General for places under the Government-- not
places of high dignity or emolument, but such as may
just enable them to exist. "We want means," they say,
"for a decent living, and for our progressive
improvement, which, however, we cannot obtain without
the assistance of Government, by whom we have been
educated and maintained from childhood." They conclude
by representing very pathetically that they are sure
that it was never the intention of Government, after
behaving so liberally to them during their education,
to abandon them to destitution and neglect.
[23] I have been used to see petitions to
Government for compensation. All those petitions, even
the most unreasonable of them, proceeded on the
supposition that some loss had been sustained, that
some wrong had been inflicted. These are surely the
first petitioners who ever demanded compensation for
having been educated gratis, for having been supported
by the public during twelve years, and then sent forth
into the world well furnished with literature and
science. They represent their education as an injury
which gives them a claim on the Government for
redress, as an injury for which the stipends paid to
them during the infliction were a very inadequate
compensation. And I doubt not that they are in the
right. They have wasted the best years of life in
learning what procures for them neither bread nor
respect. Surely we might with advantage have saved the
cost of making these persons useless and miserable.
Surely, men may be brought up to be burdens to the
public and objects of contempt to their neighbours at
a somewhat smaller charge to the State. But such is
our policy. We do not even stand neuter in the contest
between truth and falsehood. We are not content to
leave the natives to the influence of their own
hereditary prejudices. To the natural difficulties
which obstruct the progress of sound science in the
East, we add great difficulties of our own making.
Bounties and premiums, such as ought not to be given
even for the propagation of truth, we lavish on false
texts and false philosophy.
[24] By acting thus we create the very evil
which we fear. We are making that opposition which we
do not find. What we spend on the Arabic and Sanscrit
Colleges is not merely a dead loss to the cause of
truth. It is bounty-money paid to raise up champions
of error. It goes to form a nest not merely of
helpless placehunters but of bigots prompted alike by
passion and by interest to raise a cry against every
useful scheme of education. If there should be any
opposition among the natives to the change which I
recommend, that opposition will be the effect of our
own system. It will be headed by persons supported by
our stipends and trained in our colleges. The longer
we persevere in our present course, the more
formidable will that opposition be. It will be every
year reinforced by recruits whom we are paying. From
the native society, left to itself, we have no
difficulties to apprehend. All the murmuring will come
from that oriental interest which we have, by
artificial means, called into being and nursed into
strength.
[25] There is yet another fact which is alone
sufficient to prove that the feeling of the native
public, when left to itself, is not such as the
supporters of the old system represent it to be. The
committee have thought fit to lay out above a lakh of
rupees in printing Arabic and Sanscrit books. Those
books find no purchasers. It is very rarely that a
single copy is disposed of. Twenty-three thousand
volumes, most of them folios and quartos, fill the
libraries or rather the lumber-rooms of this body. The
committee contrive to get rid of some portion of their
vast stock of oriental literature by giving books
away. But they cannot give so fast as they print.
About twenty thousand rupees a year are spent in
adding fresh masses of waste paper to a hoard which,
one should think, is already sufficiently ample.
During the last three years about sixty thousand
rupees have been expended in this manner. The sale of
Arabic and Sanscrit books during those three years has
not yielded quite one thousand rupees. In the
meantime, the School Book Society is selling seven or
eight thousand English volumes every year, and not
only pays the expenses of printing but realizes a
profit of twenty per cent. on its outlay.
[30] The fact that the Hindoo law is to be
learned chiefly from Sanscrit books, and the Mahometan
law from Arabic books, has been much insisted on, but
seems not to bear at all on the question. We are
commanded by Parliament to ascertain and digest the
laws of India. The assistance of a Law Commission has
been given to us for that purpose. As soon as the Code
is promulgated the Shasters and the Hedaya will be
useless to a moonsiff or a Sudder Ameen. I hope and
trust that, before the boys who are now entering at
the Mudrassa and the Sanscrit College have completed
their studies, this great work will be finished. It
would be manifestly absurd to educate the rising
generation with a view to a state of things which we
mean to alter before they reach manhood.
[31] But there is yet another argument which
seems even more untenable. It is said that the
Sanscrit and the Arabic are the languages in which the
sacred books of a hundred millions of people are
written, and that they are on that account entitled to
peculiar encouragement. Assuredly it is the duty of
the British Government in India to be not only
tolerant but neutral on all religious questions. But
to encourage the study of a literature, admitted to be
of small intrinsic value, only because that literature
inculcated the most serious errors on the most
important subjects, is a course hardly reconcilable
with reason, with morality, or even with that very
neutrality which ought, as we all agree, to be
sacredly preserved. It is confined that a language is
barren of useful knowledge. We are to teach it because
it is fruitful of monstrous superstitions. We are to
teach false history, false astronomy, false medicine,
because we find them in company with a false religion.
We abstain, and I trust shall always abstain, from
giving any public encouragement to those who are
engaged in the work of converting the natives to
Christianity. And while we act thus, can we reasonably
or decently bribe men, out of the revenues of the
State, to waste their youth in learning how they are
to purify themselves after touching an ass or what
texts of the Vedas they are to repeat to expiate the
crime of killing a goat?
[32] It is taken for granted by the advocates
of oriental learning that no native of this country
can possibly attain more than a mere smattering of
English. They do not attempt to prove this. But they
perpetually insinuate it. They designate the education
which their opponents recommend as a mere
spelling-book education. They assume it as undeniable
that the question is between a profound knowledge of
Hindoo and Arabian literature and science on the one
side, and superficial knowledge of the rudiments of
English on the other. This is not merely an
assumption, but an assumption contrary to all reason
and experience. We know that foreigners of all nations
do learn our language sufficiently to have access to
all the most abstruse knowledge which it contains
sufficiently to relish even the more delicate graces
of our most idiomatic writers. There are in this very
town natives who are quite competent to discuss
political or scientific questions with fluency and
precision in the English language. I have heard the
very question on which I am now writing discussed by
native gentlemen with a liberality and an intelligence
which would do credit to any member of the Committee
of Public Instruction. Indeed it is unusual to find,
even in the literary circles of the Continent, any
foreigner who can express himself in English with so
much facility and correctness as we find in many
Hindoos. Nobody, I suppose, will contend that English
is so difficult to a Hindoo as Greek to an Englishman.
Yet an intelligent English youth, in a much smaller
number of years than our unfortunate pupils pass at
the Sanscrit College, becomes able to read, to enjoy,
and even to imitate not unhappily the compositions of
the best Greek authors. Less than half the time which
enables an English youth to read Herodotus and
Sophocles ought to enable a Hindoo to read Hume and
Milton.
[33] To sum up what I have said. I think it
clear that we are not fettered by the Act of
Parliament of 1813, that we are not fettered by any
pledge expressed or implied, that we are free to
employ our funds as we choose, that we ought to employ
them in teaching what is best worth knowing, that
English is better worth knowing than Sanscrit or
Arabic, that the natives are desirous to be taught
English, and are not desirous to be taught Sanscrit or
Arabic, that neither as the languages of law nor as
the languages of religion have the Sanscrit and Arabic
any peculiar claim to our encouragement, that it is
possible to make natives of this country thoroughly
good English scholars, and that to this end our
efforts ought to be directed.
[34] In one point I fully agree with the
gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel
with them that it is impossible for us, with our
limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the
people. We must at present do our best to form a class
who may be interpreters between us and the millions
whom we govern, --a class of persons Indian in blood
and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in
morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it
to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to
enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed
from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by
degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the
great mass of the population.
[35] I would strictly respect all existing
interests. I would deal even generously with all
individuals who have had fair reason to expect a
pecuniary provision. But I would strike at the root of
the bad system which has hitherto been fostered by us.
I would at once stop the printing of Arabic and
Sanscrit books. I would abolish the Mudrassa and the
Sanscrit College at Calcutta. Benares is the great
seat of Brahminical learning; Delhi of Arabic
learning. If we retain the Sanscrit College at Bonares
and the Mahometan College at Delhi we do enough and
much more than enough in my opinion, for the Eastern
languages. If the Benares and Delhi Colleges should be
retained, I would at least recommend that no stipends
shall be given to any students who may hereafter
repair thither, but that the people shall be left to
make their own choice between the rival systems of
education without being bribed by us to learn what
they have no desire to know. The funds which would
thus be placed at our disposal would enable us to give
larger encouragement to the Hindoo College at
Calcutta, and establish in the principal cities
throughout the Presidencies of Fort William and Agra
schools in which the English language might be well
and thoroughly taught.
[36] If the decision of His Lordship in
Council should be such as I anticipate, I shall enter
on the performance of my duties with the greatest zeal
and alacrity. If, on the other hand, it be the opinion
of the Government that the present system ought to
remain unchanged, I beg that I may be permitted to
retire from the chair of the Committee. I feel that I
could not be of the smallest use there. I feel also
that I should be lending my countenance to what I
firmly believe to be a mere delusion. I believe that
the present system tends not to accelerate the
progress of truth but to delay the natural death of
expiring errors. I conceive that we have at present no
right to the respectable name of a Board of Public
Instruction. We are a Board for wasting the public
money, for printing books which are of less value than
the paper on which they are printed was while it was
blank-- for giving artificial encouragement to absurd
history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd
theology-- for raising up a breed of scholars who find
their scholarship an incumbrance and blemish, who live
on the public while they are receiving their
education, and whose education is so utterly useless
to them that, when they have received it, they must
either starve or live on the public all the rest of
their lives. Entertaining these opinions, I am
naturally desirous to decline all share in the
responsibility of a body which, unless it alters its
whole mode of proceedings, I must consider, not merely
as useless, but as positively noxious.
T[homas] B[abington] MACAULAY
2nd February 1835.
I give my entire concurrence to the sentiments
expressed in this Minute.
W[illiam] C[avendish] BENTINCK.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Chekhov and class 9
On Sundays I help a class 9 girl from a Hindi medium government school to study English. The level of her English texts are such that no Hindi medium student can ever understand it.Even those from the English stream would find it difficult, and would not be able to relate to it. When the girl came to me first, a few months ago, she did not even know the difference between she, he, and it, between now and then, between this and that –in fact she didn’t know the meanings of these words. Yet they have to study poems like the Isle of Inisfree, and complex short stories. Below are the first few paragraphs of what we studied today, from Chekhov’s , The Beggar.
Couldn’t there be a better choice? Wouldn’t something from Ruskin Bond or any local writer be better?
From Chekhov’s story in the class 9 text:
‘Kind Sir, have pity; turn your attention to a poor, hungry man! For three days I have had nothing to eat; I haven't five kopecks' for a lodging, I swear it before God.
For eight years I was a village schoolteacher and then I lost my place through intrigues. I fell a victim to calumny. It is a year now since I have had anything to do-"
The advocate looked at the ragged, fawn-colored overcoat of the suppliant, at his dull, drunken eyes, at the red spot on either cheek, and it seemed to him as if he had seen this man somewhere before.
"I have now had an offer of a position in the province of Kaluga," the mendicant went on, "but I haven't the money to get there. Help me kindly; I am ashamed to ask, but I am obliged to by circumstances."
Couldn’t there be a better choice? Wouldn’t something from Ruskin Bond or any local writer be better?
From Chekhov’s story in the class 9 text:
‘Kind Sir, have pity; turn your attention to a poor, hungry man! For three days I have had nothing to eat; I haven't five kopecks' for a lodging, I swear it before God.
For eight years I was a village schoolteacher and then I lost my place through intrigues. I fell a victim to calumny. It is a year now since I have had anything to do-"
The advocate looked at the ragged, fawn-colored overcoat of the suppliant, at his dull, drunken eyes, at the red spot on either cheek, and it seemed to him as if he had seen this man somewhere before.
"I have now had an offer of a position in the province of Kaluga," the mendicant went on, "but I haven't the money to get there. Help me kindly; I am ashamed to ask, but I am obliged to by circumstances."
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The neglected north-east
Recently, 35,000 people have been displaced due to clashes between Rabhas and Garos in Assam and Meghalaya, and are now in relief camps. An incident like this should be front-page news, instead, it is relegated to the inner pages of national newspapers, if it is reported at all.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Unofficial History by Field Marshal Sir William Slim
Review by Roshen Dalal
Field Marshal William Joseph Slim (1891-1970) fought in the British army in both the First and Second World Wars, and later became the thirteenth governor general of Australia. In this book he recounts some of his experiences, in a series of essays. These describe skirmishes that were too minor to figure in official histories, or which were dismissed in gazettes with just a couple of lines.
In his essays Slim brings out the human side of war. Always with a touch of warmth and humour, he describes the men under his command, fellow officers, and the people he met in the course of his long and varied war career. He depicts his entry into Baghdad during the First World War, encounters with Turks and Arabs, and his incorrigible subordinate, Private Chuck, whom he seems to have deeply admired. Later, he is posted in a small town in India, where he tries to keep the peace between groups of Hindus and Muslims. Leading Gurkha troops in the North West Frontier, he provides an endearing and amusing portrait of the upright, loyal, and single-minded Gurkhas. Only they, he says, can sit to attention in a truck, and to keep sitting, ramrod stiff, as the Gurkha driver, driving at high speed, goes over the edge of the road with a great bump, and returns without losing his place in the convoy. In the Second World War he finds himself in Iran, liasing with Russian troops. Here we get accounts of the Russian general Novikov, the lavish Russian parties, and Russian women troops, and even a Russian woman ADC to the general. His account of his exhibition dance with her, is one example of how he could even laugh at himself!
For Slim, the wars were not of his making. He went wherever he was sent, and did his best, without losing his humanity, and his empathy, even for his war enemies. Thus he writes, ‘Looking back over a varied experience, I find I have liked all the soldiers of different races who have fought with me, and most of those who have fought against me. This is not strange for there is a freemasonry among fighting soldiers that helps them to understand one another even if they are enemies, and when peace comes, prevents them from hating too long.’
This collection of essays was first published in 1959.
Field Marshal William Joseph Slim (1891-1970) fought in the British army in both the First and Second World Wars, and later became the thirteenth governor general of Australia. In this book he recounts some of his experiences, in a series of essays. These describe skirmishes that were too minor to figure in official histories, or which were dismissed in gazettes with just a couple of lines.
In his essays Slim brings out the human side of war. Always with a touch of warmth and humour, he describes the men under his command, fellow officers, and the people he met in the course of his long and varied war career. He depicts his entry into Baghdad during the First World War, encounters with Turks and Arabs, and his incorrigible subordinate, Private Chuck, whom he seems to have deeply admired. Later, he is posted in a small town in India, where he tries to keep the peace between groups of Hindus and Muslims. Leading Gurkha troops in the North West Frontier, he provides an endearing and amusing portrait of the upright, loyal, and single-minded Gurkhas. Only they, he says, can sit to attention in a truck, and to keep sitting, ramrod stiff, as the Gurkha driver, driving at high speed, goes over the edge of the road with a great bump, and returns without losing his place in the convoy. In the Second World War he finds himself in Iran, liasing with Russian troops. Here we get accounts of the Russian general Novikov, the lavish Russian parties, and Russian women troops, and even a Russian woman ADC to the general. His account of his exhibition dance with her, is one example of how he could even laugh at himself!
For Slim, the wars were not of his making. He went wherever he was sent, and did his best, without losing his humanity, and his empathy, even for his war enemies. Thus he writes, ‘Looking back over a varied experience, I find I have liked all the soldiers of different races who have fought with me, and most of those who have fought against me. This is not strange for there is a freemasonry among fighting soldiers that helps them to understand one another even if they are enemies, and when peace comes, prevents them from hating too long.’
This collection of essays was first published in 1959.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Forgotten Books
A number of books are available for free download from www.forgottenbooks.org
The range is wide, from books on boat building, learning Sanskrit, to old fiction and philosophy. If you provide your email, they send you a link to one free book every day.
A really interesting site.
The range is wide, from books on boat building, learning Sanskrit, to old fiction and philosophy. If you provide your email, they send you a link to one free book every day.
A really interesting site.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood
Alias Grace is a fictional account of a real-life person, Grace Marks, who lived in Canada in the nineteenth century and was convicted of murder at the age of sixteen. Young and pretty, the case of Grace Marks received a lot of publicity. She was imprisoned in 1843 and released in 1872, after being granted a pardon. However, her co-conspirator, James McDermott, had been executed.
Margaret Atwood, well-known Canadian novelist and poet, uses available material to recreate the life of Grace. It is a fast-paced account, in which Margaret makes Grace the narrator. The novel depicts the inequality between classes, the poor conditions of Grace’s origins, her life as a maid, and the death of her dearest friend. It brings in other aspects, such as hypnotism, and the general society and culture of nineteenth-century Canada.
Was Grace innocent or guilty? And if guilty was her poverty an alleviating circumstance? As Atwood says in her afterward, ‘The true character of the historical Grace Marks remains an enigma’. Overall, an interesting and well-written book.
Margaret Atwood, well-known Canadian novelist and poet, uses available material to recreate the life of Grace. It is a fast-paced account, in which Margaret makes Grace the narrator. The novel depicts the inequality between classes, the poor conditions of Grace’s origins, her life as a maid, and the death of her dearest friend. It brings in other aspects, such as hypnotism, and the general society and culture of nineteenth-century Canada.
Was Grace innocent or guilty? And if guilty was her poverty an alleviating circumstance? As Atwood says in her afterward, ‘The true character of the historical Grace Marks remains an enigma’. Overall, an interesting and well-written book.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Satyavarman: invented passages in the Puranas
It is quite odd that even today people continue to quote invented passages ascribed to the Puranas, that seem to indicate that the story of Noah is contained in them.
In any case, it is useful to note that the composition of the Bible predates the Puranas.
In the passage quoted below, and particularly in the last paragraph, Max Muller reveals the truth.
-----------------------------------------
Extracted from writings of Max Muller.
The first impulse to look in the ancient religion of India for reminiscences of revealed truth seems to have come from missionaries rather than from scholars. It arose from a motive, in itself most excellent, of finding some common ground for those who wished to convert and those who were to be converted. Only, instead of looking for that common ground where it really was to be found—namely, in the broad foundations on which all religions are built up: the belief in a divine power, the acknowledgment of sin, the habit of prayer, the desire to offer sacrifice, and the [pg 101] hope of a future life—the students of Pagan religion as well as Christian missionaries were bent on discovering more striking and more startling coincidences, in order to use them in confirmation of their favorite theory that some rays of a primeval revelation, or some reflection of the Jewish religion, had reached the uttermost ends of the world. This was a dangerous proceeding—dangerous because superficial, dangerous because undertaken with a foregone conclusion; and very soon the same arguments that had been used on one side in order to prove that all religious truth had been derived from the Old Testament were turned against Christian scholars and Christian missionaries, in order to show that it was not Brahmanism and Buddhism which had borrowed from the Old and New Testament, but that the Old and the New Testament had borrowed from the more ancient religions of the Brahmans and Buddhists.
This argument was carried out, for instance, in Holwell's “Original Principles of the Ancient Brahmans,” published in London as early as 1779, in which the author maintains that “the Brahmanic religion is the first and purest product of supernatural revelation,” and “that the Hindu scriptures contain to a moral certainty the original doctrines and terms of restoration delivered from God himself, by the mouth of his first created Birmah, to mankind, at his first creation in the form of man.”
Sir William Jones48 tells us that one or two missionaries in India had been absurd enough, in their zeal for the conversion of the Gentiles, to urge “that the Hindus were even now almost Christians, because [pg 102] their Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa were no other than the Christian Trinity;” a sentence in which, he adds, we can only doubt whether folly, ignorance, or impiety predominates.
Sir William Jones himself was not likely to fall into that error. He speaks against it most emphatically. “Either,” he says, “the first eleven chapters of Genesis—all due allowance being made for a figurative Eastern style—are true, or the whole fabric of our national religion is false; a conclusion which none of us, I trust, would wish to be drawn. But it is not the truth of our national religion as such that I have at heart; it is truth itself; and if any cool, unbiassed reasoner will clearly convince me that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as a friend for having weeded my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand amongst the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth which he has ascertained.”
But though he speaks so strongly against the uncritical proceedings of those who would derive anything that is found in the Old Testament from Indian sources, Sir William Jones himself was really guilty of the same want of critical caution in his own attempts to identify the gods and heroes of Greece and Rome with the gods and heroes of India. He begins his essay,49 “On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India,” with the following remarks:—
“We cannot justly conclude, by arguments preceding the proof of facts, that one idolatrous people must have borrowed their deities, rites, and tenets from another, since gods of all shapes and dimensions [pg 103] may be framed by the boundless powers of imagination, or by the frauds and follies of men, in countries never connected; but when features of resemblance, too strong to have been accidental, are observable in different systems of polytheism, without fancy or prejudice to color them and improve the likeness, we can scarce help believing that some connection has immemorially subsisted between the several nations who have adopted them. It is my design in this essay to point out such a resemblance between the popular worship of the old Greeks and Italians and that of the Hindus; nor can there be any room to doubt of a great similarity between their strange religions and that of Egypt, China, Persia, Phrygia, Phœnice, and Syria; to which, perhaps, we may safely add some of the southern kingdoms, and even islands of America; while the Gothic system which prevailed in the northern regions of Europe was not merely similar to those of Greece and Italy, but almost the same in another dress, with an embroidery of images apparently Asiatic. From all this, if it be satisfactorily proved, we may infer a general union or affinity between the most distinguished inhabitants of the primitive world at the time when they deviated, as they did too early deviate, from the rational adoration of the only true God.”
Here, then, in an essay written nearly a hundred years ago by Sir W. Jones, one of the most celebrated Oriental scholars in England, it might seem as if we should find the first outlines of that science which is looked upon as but of to-day or yesterday—the outlines of Comparative Mythology. But in such an expectation we are disappointed. What we find is merely a superficial comparison of the mythology of [pg 104] India and that of other nations, both Aryan and Semitic, without any scientific value, because carried out without any of those critical tests which alone keep Comparative Mythology from running riot. This is not intended as casting a slur on Sir W. Jones. At his time the principles which have now been established by the students of the science of language were not yet known, and as with words, so with the names of deities, similarity of sound, the most treacherous of all sirens, was the only guide in such researches.
It is not pleasant to have to find fault with a man possessed of such genius, taste, and learning as Sir W. Jones, but no one who is acquainted with the history of these researches will be surprised at my words. It is the fate of all pioneers, not only to be left behind in the assault which they had planned, but to find that many of their approaches were made in a false direction, and had to be abandoned. But as the authority of their names continues to sway the public at large, and is apt to mislead even painstaking students and to entail upon them repeated disappointments, it is necessary that those who know should speak out, even at the risk of being considered harsh or presumptuous.
A few instances will suffice to show how utterly baseless the comparisons are which Sir W. Jones instituted between the gods of India, Greece, and Italy. He compares the Latin Janus with the Sanskrit deity Ganesa. It is well known that Janus is connected with the same root that has yielded the names of Jupiter, Zeus, and Dyaus, while Ganesa is a compound, meaning lord of hosts, lord of the companies of gods.
[pg 105]
Saturnus is supposed to have been the same as Noah, and is then identified by Sir W. Jones with the Indian Manu Satyavrata, who escaped from the flood. Ceres is compared with the goddess Sri, Jupiter or Diespiter with Indra or Divaspati; and though etymology is called a weak basis for historical inquiries, the three syllables Jov in Jovis, Zeu in Zeus, and Siv in Siva are placed side by side, as possibly containing the same root, only differently pronounced. Now the s of Siva is a palatal s, and no scholar who has once looked into a book on Comparative Philology need be told that such an s could never correspond to a Greek Zeta or a Latin J.
In Krishna, the lovely shepherd-god, Sir W. Jones recognizes the features of Apollo Nomius, who fed the herds of Admetus, and slew the dragon Python; and he leaves it to etymologists to determine whether Gopâla—i. e., the cow-herd—may not be the same word as Apollo. We are also assured, on the authority of Colonel Vallancey, that Krishna in Irish means the sun, and that the goddess Kâlî, to whom human sacrifices were offered, as enjoined in the Vedas (?) was the same as Hekate. In conclusion, Sir W. Jones remarks, “I strongly incline to believe that Egyptian priests have actually come from the Nile to the Gangâ and Yamunâ, and that they visited the Sarmans of India, as the sages of Greece visited them, rather to acquire than to impart knowledge.”
The interest that had been excited by Sir William Jones's researches did not subside, though he himself did not return to the subject, but devoted his great powers to more useful labors. Scholars, both in India and in Europe, wanted to know more of the ancient religion of India. If Jupiter, Apollo, and Janus [pg 106] had once been found in the ancient pantheon of the Brahmans; if the account of Noah and the deluge could be traced back to the story of Manu Satyavrata, who escaped from the flood, more discoveries might be expected in this newly-opened mine, and people rushed to it with all the eagerness of gold-diggers. The idea that everything in India was of extreme antiquity had at that time taken a firm hold on the minds of all students of Sanskrit; and, as there was no one to check their enthusiasm, everything that came to light in Sanskrit literature was readily accepted as more ancient than Homer, or even than the Old Testament.
It was under these influences that Lieutenant Wilford, a contemporary of Sir William Jones at Calcutta, took up the thread which Sir William Jones had dropped, and determined at all hazards to solve the question which at that time had excited a worldwide interest. Convinced that the Brahmans possessed in their ancient literature the originals, not only of Greek and Roman mythology, but likewise of the Old Testament history, he tried every possible means to overcome their reserve and reticence. He related to them, as well as he could, the principal stories of classical mythology, and the leading events in the history of the Old Testament; he assured them that they would find the same things in their ancient books, if they would but look for them; he held out the hopes of ample rewards for any extracts from their sacred literature containing the histories of Adam and Eve, of Deukalion and Prometheus; and at last he succeeded. The coyness of the Pandits yielded; the incessant demand created a supply; and for several years essay after essay appeared in [pg 107] the “Asiatic Researches,” with extracts from Sanskrit MSS., containing not only the names of Deukalion, Prometheus, and other heroes and deities of Greece, but likewise the names of Adam and Eve, of Abraham and Sarah, and all the rest.
Great was the surprise, still greater the joy, not only in Calcutta, but in London, at Paris, and all the universities of Germany. The Sanskrit MSS. from which Lieutenant Wilford quoted, and on which his theories were based, had been submitted to Sir W. Jones and other scholars; and though many persons were surprised, and for a time even incredulous, yet the fact could not be denied that all was found in these Sanskrit MSS. as stated by Lieutenant Wilford. Sir W. Jones, then President of the Asiatic Society, printed the following declaration at the end of the third volume of the “Asiatic Researches”:—
“Since I am persuaded that the learned essay on Egypt and the Nile has afforded you equal delight with that which I have myself received from it, I cannot refrain from endeavoring to increase your satisfaction by confessing openly that I have at length abandoned the greatest part of the natural distrust, and incredulity which had taken possession of my mind before I had examined the sources from which our excellent associate, Lieutenant Wilford, has drawn so great a variety of new and interesting opinions. Having lately read again and again, both alone and with a Pandit, the numerous original passages in the Purânas, and other Sanskrit books, which the writer of the dissertation adduces in support of his assertions, I am happy in bearing testimony to his perfect good faith and general accuracy, both in his extracts and in the translation of them.”
[pg 108]
Sir W. Jones then proceeds himself to give a translation of some of these passages. “The following translation,” he writes, “of an extract from the Padma-purâna is minutely exact”:—
“1. To Satyavarman, the sovereign of the whole earth, were born three sons; the eldest, Sherma; then Charma; and thirdly, Jyapeti.
“2. They were all men of good morals, excellent in virtue and virtuous deeds, skilled in the use of weapons to strike with, or to be thrown, brave men, eager for victory in battle.
“3. But Satyavarman, being continually delighted with devout meditation, and seeing his sons fit for dominion, laid upon them the burden of government,
“4. Whilst he remained honoring and satisfying the gods, and priests, and kine. One day, by the act of destiny, the king, having drunk mead,
“5. Became senseless, and lay asleep naked; then was he seen by Charma, and by him were his two brothers called.
“6. To whom he said: What now has befallen? In what state is this our sire? By those two was he hidden with clothes, and called to his senses again and again.
“7. Having recovered his intellect, and perfectly knowing what had passed, he cursed Charma, saying, Thou shalt be the servant of servants:
“8. And since thou wast a laugher in their presence, from laughter shalt thou acquire a name. Then he gave to Sherma the wide domain on the south of the snowy mountains.
“9. And to Jyapeti he gave all on the north of the snowy mountains; but he, by the power of religious contemplation, obtained supreme bliss.”
[pg 109]
After this testimony from Sir W. Jones—wrung from him, as it would seem, against his own wish and will—Lieutenant Wilford's essays became more numerous and more startling every year.
At last, however, the coincidences became too great. The MSS. were again carefully examined; and then it was found that a clever forgery had been committed, that leaves had been inserted in ancient MSS., and that on these leaves the Pandits, urged by Lieutenant Wilford to disclose their ancient mysteries and traditions, had rendered in correct Sanskrit verse all that they had heard about Adam and Abraham from their inquisitive master. Lieutenant (then Colonel) Wilford did not hesitate for one moment to confess publicly that he had been imposed upon; but in the meantime the mischief had been done, his essays had been read all over Europe, they retained their place in the volumes of the “Asiatic Researches,” and to the present day some of his statements and theories continue to be quoted authoritatively by writers on ancient religion.
Such accidents, and, one might almost say, such misfortunes, will happen, and it would be extremely unfair were we to use unnecessarily harsh language with regard to those to whom they have happened. It is perfectly true that at present, after the progress that has been made in an accurate and critical study of Sanskrit, it would be unpardonable if any Sanskrit scholar accepted such passages as those translated by Sir W. Jones as genuine.
In any case, it is useful to note that the composition of the Bible predates the Puranas.
In the passage quoted below, and particularly in the last paragraph, Max Muller reveals the truth.
-----------------------------------------
Extracted from writings of Max Muller.
The first impulse to look in the ancient religion of India for reminiscences of revealed truth seems to have come from missionaries rather than from scholars. It arose from a motive, in itself most excellent, of finding some common ground for those who wished to convert and those who were to be converted. Only, instead of looking for that common ground where it really was to be found—namely, in the broad foundations on which all religions are built up: the belief in a divine power, the acknowledgment of sin, the habit of prayer, the desire to offer sacrifice, and the [pg 101] hope of a future life—the students of Pagan religion as well as Christian missionaries were bent on discovering more striking and more startling coincidences, in order to use them in confirmation of their favorite theory that some rays of a primeval revelation, or some reflection of the Jewish religion, had reached the uttermost ends of the world. This was a dangerous proceeding—dangerous because superficial, dangerous because undertaken with a foregone conclusion; and very soon the same arguments that had been used on one side in order to prove that all religious truth had been derived from the Old Testament were turned against Christian scholars and Christian missionaries, in order to show that it was not Brahmanism and Buddhism which had borrowed from the Old and New Testament, but that the Old and the New Testament had borrowed from the more ancient religions of the Brahmans and Buddhists.
This argument was carried out, for instance, in Holwell's “Original Principles of the Ancient Brahmans,” published in London as early as 1779, in which the author maintains that “the Brahmanic religion is the first and purest product of supernatural revelation,” and “that the Hindu scriptures contain to a moral certainty the original doctrines and terms of restoration delivered from God himself, by the mouth of his first created Birmah, to mankind, at his first creation in the form of man.”
Sir William Jones48 tells us that one or two missionaries in India had been absurd enough, in their zeal for the conversion of the Gentiles, to urge “that the Hindus were even now almost Christians, because [pg 102] their Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa were no other than the Christian Trinity;” a sentence in which, he adds, we can only doubt whether folly, ignorance, or impiety predominates.
Sir William Jones himself was not likely to fall into that error. He speaks against it most emphatically. “Either,” he says, “the first eleven chapters of Genesis—all due allowance being made for a figurative Eastern style—are true, or the whole fabric of our national religion is false; a conclusion which none of us, I trust, would wish to be drawn. But it is not the truth of our national religion as such that I have at heart; it is truth itself; and if any cool, unbiassed reasoner will clearly convince me that Moses drew his narrative through Egyptian conduits from the primeval fountains of Indian literature, I shall esteem him as a friend for having weeded my mind from a capital error, and promise to stand amongst the foremost in assisting to circulate the truth which he has ascertained.”
But though he speaks so strongly against the uncritical proceedings of those who would derive anything that is found in the Old Testament from Indian sources, Sir William Jones himself was really guilty of the same want of critical caution in his own attempts to identify the gods and heroes of Greece and Rome with the gods and heroes of India. He begins his essay,49 “On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India,” with the following remarks:—
“We cannot justly conclude, by arguments preceding the proof of facts, that one idolatrous people must have borrowed their deities, rites, and tenets from another, since gods of all shapes and dimensions [pg 103] may be framed by the boundless powers of imagination, or by the frauds and follies of men, in countries never connected; but when features of resemblance, too strong to have been accidental, are observable in different systems of polytheism, without fancy or prejudice to color them and improve the likeness, we can scarce help believing that some connection has immemorially subsisted between the several nations who have adopted them. It is my design in this essay to point out such a resemblance between the popular worship of the old Greeks and Italians and that of the Hindus; nor can there be any room to doubt of a great similarity between their strange religions and that of Egypt, China, Persia, Phrygia, Phœnice, and Syria; to which, perhaps, we may safely add some of the southern kingdoms, and even islands of America; while the Gothic system which prevailed in the northern regions of Europe was not merely similar to those of Greece and Italy, but almost the same in another dress, with an embroidery of images apparently Asiatic. From all this, if it be satisfactorily proved, we may infer a general union or affinity between the most distinguished inhabitants of the primitive world at the time when they deviated, as they did too early deviate, from the rational adoration of the only true God.”
Here, then, in an essay written nearly a hundred years ago by Sir W. Jones, one of the most celebrated Oriental scholars in England, it might seem as if we should find the first outlines of that science which is looked upon as but of to-day or yesterday—the outlines of Comparative Mythology. But in such an expectation we are disappointed. What we find is merely a superficial comparison of the mythology of [pg 104] India and that of other nations, both Aryan and Semitic, without any scientific value, because carried out without any of those critical tests which alone keep Comparative Mythology from running riot. This is not intended as casting a slur on Sir W. Jones. At his time the principles which have now been established by the students of the science of language were not yet known, and as with words, so with the names of deities, similarity of sound, the most treacherous of all sirens, was the only guide in such researches.
It is not pleasant to have to find fault with a man possessed of such genius, taste, and learning as Sir W. Jones, but no one who is acquainted with the history of these researches will be surprised at my words. It is the fate of all pioneers, not only to be left behind in the assault which they had planned, but to find that many of their approaches were made in a false direction, and had to be abandoned. But as the authority of their names continues to sway the public at large, and is apt to mislead even painstaking students and to entail upon them repeated disappointments, it is necessary that those who know should speak out, even at the risk of being considered harsh or presumptuous.
A few instances will suffice to show how utterly baseless the comparisons are which Sir W. Jones instituted between the gods of India, Greece, and Italy. He compares the Latin Janus with the Sanskrit deity Ganesa. It is well known that Janus is connected with the same root that has yielded the names of Jupiter, Zeus, and Dyaus, while Ganesa is a compound, meaning lord of hosts, lord of the companies of gods.
[pg 105]
Saturnus is supposed to have been the same as Noah, and is then identified by Sir W. Jones with the Indian Manu Satyavrata, who escaped from the flood. Ceres is compared with the goddess Sri, Jupiter or Diespiter with Indra or Divaspati; and though etymology is called a weak basis for historical inquiries, the three syllables Jov in Jovis, Zeu in Zeus, and Siv in Siva are placed side by side, as possibly containing the same root, only differently pronounced. Now the s of Siva is a palatal s, and no scholar who has once looked into a book on Comparative Philology need be told that such an s could never correspond to a Greek Zeta or a Latin J.
In Krishna, the lovely shepherd-god, Sir W. Jones recognizes the features of Apollo Nomius, who fed the herds of Admetus, and slew the dragon Python; and he leaves it to etymologists to determine whether Gopâla—i. e., the cow-herd—may not be the same word as Apollo. We are also assured, on the authority of Colonel Vallancey, that Krishna in Irish means the sun, and that the goddess Kâlî, to whom human sacrifices were offered, as enjoined in the Vedas (?) was the same as Hekate. In conclusion, Sir W. Jones remarks, “I strongly incline to believe that Egyptian priests have actually come from the Nile to the Gangâ and Yamunâ, and that they visited the Sarmans of India, as the sages of Greece visited them, rather to acquire than to impart knowledge.”
The interest that had been excited by Sir William Jones's researches did not subside, though he himself did not return to the subject, but devoted his great powers to more useful labors. Scholars, both in India and in Europe, wanted to know more of the ancient religion of India. If Jupiter, Apollo, and Janus [pg 106] had once been found in the ancient pantheon of the Brahmans; if the account of Noah and the deluge could be traced back to the story of Manu Satyavrata, who escaped from the flood, more discoveries might be expected in this newly-opened mine, and people rushed to it with all the eagerness of gold-diggers. The idea that everything in India was of extreme antiquity had at that time taken a firm hold on the minds of all students of Sanskrit; and, as there was no one to check their enthusiasm, everything that came to light in Sanskrit literature was readily accepted as more ancient than Homer, or even than the Old Testament.
It was under these influences that Lieutenant Wilford, a contemporary of Sir William Jones at Calcutta, took up the thread which Sir William Jones had dropped, and determined at all hazards to solve the question which at that time had excited a worldwide interest. Convinced that the Brahmans possessed in their ancient literature the originals, not only of Greek and Roman mythology, but likewise of the Old Testament history, he tried every possible means to overcome their reserve and reticence. He related to them, as well as he could, the principal stories of classical mythology, and the leading events in the history of the Old Testament; he assured them that they would find the same things in their ancient books, if they would but look for them; he held out the hopes of ample rewards for any extracts from their sacred literature containing the histories of Adam and Eve, of Deukalion and Prometheus; and at last he succeeded. The coyness of the Pandits yielded; the incessant demand created a supply; and for several years essay after essay appeared in [pg 107] the “Asiatic Researches,” with extracts from Sanskrit MSS., containing not only the names of Deukalion, Prometheus, and other heroes and deities of Greece, but likewise the names of Adam and Eve, of Abraham and Sarah, and all the rest.
Great was the surprise, still greater the joy, not only in Calcutta, but in London, at Paris, and all the universities of Germany. The Sanskrit MSS. from which Lieutenant Wilford quoted, and on which his theories were based, had been submitted to Sir W. Jones and other scholars; and though many persons were surprised, and for a time even incredulous, yet the fact could not be denied that all was found in these Sanskrit MSS. as stated by Lieutenant Wilford. Sir W. Jones, then President of the Asiatic Society, printed the following declaration at the end of the third volume of the “Asiatic Researches”:—
“Since I am persuaded that the learned essay on Egypt and the Nile has afforded you equal delight with that which I have myself received from it, I cannot refrain from endeavoring to increase your satisfaction by confessing openly that I have at length abandoned the greatest part of the natural distrust, and incredulity which had taken possession of my mind before I had examined the sources from which our excellent associate, Lieutenant Wilford, has drawn so great a variety of new and interesting opinions. Having lately read again and again, both alone and with a Pandit, the numerous original passages in the Purânas, and other Sanskrit books, which the writer of the dissertation adduces in support of his assertions, I am happy in bearing testimony to his perfect good faith and general accuracy, both in his extracts and in the translation of them.”
[pg 108]
Sir W. Jones then proceeds himself to give a translation of some of these passages. “The following translation,” he writes, “of an extract from the Padma-purâna is minutely exact”:—
“1. To Satyavarman, the sovereign of the whole earth, were born three sons; the eldest, Sherma; then Charma; and thirdly, Jyapeti.
“2. They were all men of good morals, excellent in virtue and virtuous deeds, skilled in the use of weapons to strike with, or to be thrown, brave men, eager for victory in battle.
“3. But Satyavarman, being continually delighted with devout meditation, and seeing his sons fit for dominion, laid upon them the burden of government,
“4. Whilst he remained honoring and satisfying the gods, and priests, and kine. One day, by the act of destiny, the king, having drunk mead,
“5. Became senseless, and lay asleep naked; then was he seen by Charma, and by him were his two brothers called.
“6. To whom he said: What now has befallen? In what state is this our sire? By those two was he hidden with clothes, and called to his senses again and again.
“7. Having recovered his intellect, and perfectly knowing what had passed, he cursed Charma, saying, Thou shalt be the servant of servants:
“8. And since thou wast a laugher in their presence, from laughter shalt thou acquire a name. Then he gave to Sherma the wide domain on the south of the snowy mountains.
“9. And to Jyapeti he gave all on the north of the snowy mountains; but he, by the power of religious contemplation, obtained supreme bliss.”
[pg 109]
After this testimony from Sir W. Jones—wrung from him, as it would seem, against his own wish and will—Lieutenant Wilford's essays became more numerous and more startling every year.
At last, however, the coincidences became too great. The MSS. were again carefully examined; and then it was found that a clever forgery had been committed, that leaves had been inserted in ancient MSS., and that on these leaves the Pandits, urged by Lieutenant Wilford to disclose their ancient mysteries and traditions, had rendered in correct Sanskrit verse all that they had heard about Adam and Abraham from their inquisitive master. Lieutenant (then Colonel) Wilford did not hesitate for one moment to confess publicly that he had been imposed upon; but in the meantime the mischief had been done, his essays had been read all over Europe, they retained their place in the volumes of the “Asiatic Researches,” and to the present day some of his statements and theories continue to be quoted authoritatively by writers on ancient religion.
Such accidents, and, one might almost say, such misfortunes, will happen, and it would be extremely unfair were we to use unnecessarily harsh language with regard to those to whom they have happened. It is perfectly true that at present, after the progress that has been made in an accurate and critical study of Sanskrit, it would be unpardonable if any Sanskrit scholar accepted such passages as those translated by Sir W. Jones as genuine.
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