Sanskrit scholar

“ A scholar who studies Sanskrit in Germany is supposed to be initiated in the deep and dark mysteries of ancient wisdom, and a man who has travelled in India, even if he has only discovered Calcutta, or Bombay, or Madras, is listened to like another Marco Polo. In England a student of Sanskrit is generally considered a bore, and an old Indian civil servant, if he begins to describe the marvels of Elephanta or the Towers of Silence, runs the risk of producing a count-out. ”

“ The number of Sanskrit scholars has by this time become considerable, and there is hardly a country in Europe which may not be proud of some distinguished names. In India, too, a new and most useful school of Sanskrit students is rising, who are doing excellent work in bringing to light the forgotten treasures of their country’s literature. ”

“ You know that at present and for some time to come Sanskrit scholarship means discovery and conquest. Every one of your own works marks a real advance, and a permanent occupation of new ground. But you know also how small a strip has as yet been explored of the vast continent of Sanskrit literature, and how much still remains terra incognita. No doubt this exploring work is troublesome, and often disappointing, but young students must learn the truth of a remark lately made by a distinguished member of the Indian Civil Service, whose death we all deplore, Dr. ”

“ The Indian Government has of late years ordered a kind of bibliographical survey of India to be made, and has sent some learned Sanskrit scholars, both European and native, to places where collections of Sanskrit mss. are known to exist, in order to examine and catalogue them. Some of these catalogues have been published, and we learn from them that the number of separate works in Sanskrit, of which mss. are still in existence, amounts to about 10,000. [98] This is more, I believe, than the whole classical literature of Greece and Italy put together. ”

“ Though Sanskrit scholars differ as much as other scholars, the broad facts of the Solar Theory have never been called in question by any competent authority, I mean, by anybody acquainted with Greek and Latin, and a little of Vedic Sanskrit. ”

“ The proneness of the Indian mind to reflection not only produced important results in religion, philosophy, and science; it also found a more abundant expression in poetry than the literature of any other nation can boast. Scattered throughout the most various departments of Sanskrit literature are innumerable apophthegms in which wise and noble, striking and original thoughts often appear in a highly finished and poetical garb. ”

“ There was indeed a time when people began to imagine that all that was worth knowing about Indian literature was known, and that the only ground on which Sanskrit could claim a place among the recognized branches of learning in a university was its usefulness for the study of the Science of Language. ”

“ I hope, therefore, that, besides those who attend my public lectures, there will be at least a few to form a private class for the study of the elements of Sanskrit. Sanskrit, no doubt, is a very difficult language, and it requires the study of a whole life to master its enormous literature. Its grammar, too, has been elaborated with such incredible minuteness by native grammarians, that I am not surprised if many scholars who begin the study of Sanskrit turn back from it in dismay. ”

“ As a pioneer in Sanskrit learning and as founder of the Asiatic Society he rendered the language and literature of the ancient Hindus accessible to European scholars, and thus became the indirect cause of later achievements in the field of Sanskrit and comparative philology. ”

“ A striking peculiarity of Sanskrit poetry is its extensive use in treating of those subjects apparently the most difficult to reduce to a metrical form—not only the Vedas and Manu's code are composed in verse, but the sciences are expressed in this form. Even in the few works which may be called prose, the style is so modulated and bears so great a resemblance to the language of poetry as scarcely to be distinguished from it. The history of Sanskrit poetry is, in reality, the history of Sanskrit literature. ”

“ As Hindus we ought never to forget the labor of scholars. We owe them our life as a nation, our freedom as a recognized society, and our position in the scale of races. It is the fashion with many to decry the labors of those men as dry, unprofitable, and 356 dreamy. We should know that it is to the study of the roots and inflections of the Sanskrit language that we owe our national salvation. . . . Within a very few years after the discovery of Sanskrit, a revolution took place in the history of comparative science. ”

“ Thus in the course of a century the whole range of Sanskrit literature, which in quantity exceeds that of Greece and Rome put together, has been explored. The great bulk of it has been edited, and most of its valuable productions have been translated, by competent hands. There has long been at the service of scholars a Sanskrit dictionary, larger and more scientific than any either of the classical languages yet possesses. ”

“ There is thus distinctly a twofold demand in this country for a history of Sanskrit literature. The student is in want of a guide setting forth in a clear and trustworthy manner the results of research down to the present time, and the cultivated English reader looks for a book presenting in an intelligible and attractive form information which must have a special interest to us owing to our close relations with India. ”

“ Such was that chaos of thought into which the discovery of Sanskrit suddenly threw its great light. Well does one of the foremost modern philologists say that this "was the electric spark which caused the floating elements to crystallize into regular forms." Among the first to bring the knowledge of Sanskrit to Europe were the Jesuit missionaries, whose services to the material basis of the science of comparative philology had already been so great, and the importance of the new discovery was soon seen among all scholars, whether orthodox or scientific. ”

“ Were we to translate this so-called âtmavidyâ, this self-knowledge, by knowledge of the soul, we should not be altogether wrong, but we should nevertheless lose all that distinguishes Indian from Greek thought. It may not be good English to say to know his self, still less to know our selfs, but it would be bad Sanskrit to say to know himself, to know ourselves; or, at all events, such a rendering would deprive us of the greatest advantage in the study of Indian philosophy, the opportunity of seeing in how many different ways man has tried to solve the riddles of the world and of his soul. ”

“ Sanskrit certainly forms the only sound foundation of Comparative Philology, and it will always remain the only safe guide through all its intricacies. A comparative philologist without a knowledge of Sanskrit is like an astronomer without a knowledge of mathematics. He may admire, he may observe, he may discover, but he will never feel satisfied, he will never feel certain, he will never feel quite at home. ”

“ It is undoubtedly a surprising fact that down to the present time no history of Sanskrit literature as a whole has been written in English. For not only does that literature possess much intrinsic merit, but the light it sheds on the life and thought of the population of our Indian Empire ought to have a peculiar interest for the British nation. ”

“ Although so much of Sanskrit literature has already been published, an examination of the catalogues of Sanskrit manuscripts, of which an enormous number are preserved in European and Indian libraries, proves that there are still many minor works awaiting, and likely to repay, the labours of an editor. ”

“ When we consider what she achieved in these forty-five months of seclusion, it is impossible to wonder that the frail and hectic body succumbed under so excessive a strain.
She brought with her from Europe a store of knowledge that would have sufficed to make an English or French girl seem learned, but which in her case was simply miraculous. Immediately on her return she began to study Sanskrit with the same intense application which she gave to all her work, and mastering the language with extraordinary swiftness, she plunged into its mysterious literature. ”

“ But from the time that Sanskrit ceased to be the vehicle of philosophical thinking in India the importance of this literature has gradually lost ground, and it can hardly be hoped that it will ever regain its old position by attracting enthusiastic students in large numbers. ”

“ Some people hold that the literary works which we possess in Sanskrit never had any real life at all, that they were altogether scholastic productions, and that therefore they can teach us nothing of what we really care for, namely, the historical growth of the Hindu mind. Others maintain that at the present moment, at all events, and after a century of English rule, Sanskrit literature has ceased to be a motive power in India, and that it can teach us nothing of what is passing now through the Hindu mind and influencing it for good or for evil. ”

“ It should be recollected to their credit, that the germ of almost every known invention, the original idea of nearly every useful secret in arts, the knowledge of the highest branches of the abstract sciences, had been familiar to the wise men of the East, and were taught in the most perfect language in the world, the mother of all other languages, the Sanskrit. ”

“ The style, too, excepting the two old epics, is in Sanskrit poetry made more artificial by the frequent use of long compounds, as well as by the application of the elaborate rules of poetics, while the language is regulated by the grammar of Pāṇini. Thus classical Sanskrit literature, teeming as it does with fantastic and exaggerated ideas, while bound by the strictest rules of form, is like a tropical garden full of luxuriant and rank growth, in which, however, many a fair flower of true poetry may be culled. ”

“ The Hindus, in their first intercourse with English scholars, placed before them the treasures of their native literature with all the natural pride of a nation that considered itself the oldest, the wisest, the most enlightened nation in the world. For a time, but for a short time only, the claims of their literature to a fabulous antiquity were admitted, and dazzled by the unexpected discovery of a new classical literature, 333 people raved about the beauty of Sanskrit poetry in truly Oriental strains. ”

“ Yes, but for all that a very real being, and an ancestor too of whom we must learn to be proud, far more than of any such modern ancestors, as Normans, Saxons, Celts, and all the rest.
And this is not all yet that a study of Sanskrit and the other Aryan languages has done for us. It has not only widened our views of man, and taught us to embrace millions of strangers and barbarians as members of one [48] family, but it has imparted to the whole ancient history of man a reality which it never possessed before. ”

“ Although Sanskrit is no longer spoken by the great mass of the people, there are few large towns in which we do not meet with some more or less learned natives—the pandits, or, as they used to be called, pundits—men who have passed through a regular apprenticeship in Sanskrit grammar, and who generally devote themselves to the study of some special branch of Sanskrit literature, whether law, or logic, or rhetoric, or astronomy, or anything else. ”

“ The intellectual life of the Indians has, in fact, all along been more dominated by religious thought than that of any other race. The Indians, moreover, developed independently several systems of philosophy which bear evidence of high speculative powers. The great interest, however, which these two subjects must have for us lies, not so much in the results they attained, as in the fact that every step in the evolution of religion and philosophy can be traced in Sanskrit literature. ”

“ They are pseudo-historical and prophetic in character, of modern date, and of inferior value. Real history finds no place in Sanskrit literature, nor is there any conscious historical element in any of the works composing it. ”

“ As might be expected, true knowledge receives frequent frequent and high appreciation in Sanskrit ethical poetry. It is compared with a rich treasure which cannot be divided among relations, which no thief can steal, and which is never diminished by being imparted to others. Contempt, on the other hand, is poured on pedantry and spurious learning. Those who have read many books, without understanding their sense, are likened to an ass laden with sandal wood, who feels only the weight, but knows nothing of the value of his burden. ”

“ Knowledge of grammar, of the dictionary, poetics, and metrics are demanded, as well as skill in the sixty-four acts; purity of mind, speech, and body are requisite, as well as most attractive surroundings. The poet’s male attendants are to speak Apabhraṅça, the female Māgadhī, while those within the harem itself are to use Prākrit and Sanskrit, and his friends to exercise themselves in all forms of speech. ”

“ Though not spoken today by any tribe or people, it is not a dead language, for it is the religious tongue of India. The best thought, the deepest philosophy, the highest religious aspiration, the laws, customs and legends of the people are treasured in that tongue. All who would know the religious life and thought of India at its best and in its sources, should study Sanskrit. From it have sprung many of the languages of Modern India. In the northern and northwestern parts, the Aryan tongues find supremacy. ”

“ A knowledge of the commonplace, at least, of Oriental literature, philosophy, and religion is as necessary to the general reader of the present day as an acquaintance with the Latin and Greek classics was a generation or so ago. Immense strides have been made within the present century in these branches of learning; Sanskrit has been brought within the range of accurate philology, and its invaluable ancient literature thoroughly investigated ”