What Vedic India can Teach World

What Vedic India can Teach World
Yogesh Snehi

The Tribune, Sunday, November 10, 2002

India: What can it teach us? by F. Max Muller.
(Rupa & Co. Pages 189. Rs 150)

THE book is a collection of seven lectures on India and its ancient philosophy delivered by Max Muller at Cambridge University. These lectures were given to the candidates for the Indian Civil Service (ICS). While they took the study of Greek and Latin and its philosophy, art and laws keenly, Sanskrit and its philosophy, art and laws were considered useless and tedious.

Friedrich Max Muller was a German orientalist, linguist and Indologist whose works stimulated widespread interest in the study of linguistics, mythology and religion. Originally a student of Sanskrit, Muller turned to comparative language studies and in 1845 he began studying Avesta, the Zoroastrian sacred scripture written in Old Iranian. The East India Company commissioned him to edit the Rig Veda in 1847, which resulted in the publication of six giant volumes on the subject.

In the first lecture, "What can India teach us?" Muller makes an attempt to reformulate the minds of the ICS aspirants so that "they feel at home among the Indians, as a fellow-worker among fellow-workers and not as an alien among aliens." He emphasises the study of Indian history and tends to develop the curiosity of the audience and translate it into an exercise, which they may undertake in their leisure hours. He projects India as a barren land under which the traces of thousands of years of history lie buried, to be explored and understood. His arguments also reveal his humanism.

In the second lecture Muller grapples with another mischievous prejudice which considers the Hindus an ‘inferior race,’ totally different from Europeans in moral character and more particularly, respect for truth. He is critical of the role played by some Europeans, like Mill, in underestimating India. Muller puts forth vivid accounts from epics and the Vedas, which give beautiful insights into the conception of truth and the nature of reality.

The third lecture focuses on the significance of Sanskrit literature. "To a classical scholar I can only say that between a Civil Servant who knows Sanskrit and Hindustani, and another who knows Hindustani only, there is about the same difference in their power of forming an intelligent appreciation of India and its inhabitants, as there is between a traveller who visits Italy with a knowledge of Latin, and a party personally conducted to Rome by Messrs. Cook and Co." Emphasising the historical importance of Sanskrit, the author says, "In Sanskrit we find the Aryan man, whom we know in his various characters, as Greek, Roman, German, Celt and Slav, in an entirely new character." Highlighting the philosophical aspect of it he describes that if the highest wisdom of Greece was "to know ourselves," the highest wisdom of India is "to know our self."

There is an interesting discussion on the importance of Rig Veda in the study of evolution of religious thought. Commenting on the originality of the Vedic religion he says, "In India alone and more particularly in Vedic India, we see a plant entirely grown on native soil and entirely nurtured by native air. It is full of lessons which the student of religion could learn nowhere else."

Muller assigns the term ‘Kathenotheism’ (as against monotheism and polytheism) to define the nature of Vedic worship and to explain the deeper meaning which underlies the Veda. His mind and intellect reflects a high degree of maturity and integrity. The very use of words "our Vedic ancestors" reflects the author’s sense of identification with this ancient literature. Many researchers, till today, believe that religion sprang from fear and terror. Refuting this observation, Muller says religion is trust, and trust arises from the impression made on the minds and hearts of men by the order and wisdom of nature. He elucidates this point by discussing the concept of various gods in the Vedas.

In a lecture on Veda and Vedanta, he narrates the ways in which the strotriyas memorise the hymns of the Rig Veda which are preserved by means of an oral traditions. He elucidates the essence of Vedanta, which lies in the discovery of ‘The Self’. He recognises the Vedas as historical documents, aye, the most ancient documents in the history of human mind.

The book, an inquiry into the wisdom of the Vedas, can be helpful in establishing an important link with our ancient culture. However, the book contains certain facts, which through further research have become more refined and need to be clarified. Despite this, the work can serve as a journey into the realm of our mind.