English
But no one who wishes to acquire a thorough knowledge of these or any other of the Indo-European languages, — no one who takes an interest in the philosophy and the historical growth of humltn speech, — no one who desires to study the history of that branch of man- kind to which we ourselves belong, and to discover in the first germs of the language, religion, and my- thology of our forefathers, the wisdom of Him who is not the God of the Jews only, — can, for the future, dispense with some knowledge of the language and ancient literature of India. And yet Indian philology is still in its infancy, and the difficulties with which it has had to contend have been great, much greater, indeed, than those which lay in the way of Greek philology after its revival in the fifteenth century. Seventy years after the fall of Constantinople, the classical works of Greek literature were not only studied from manuscripts; they had been edited and printed. There were men like Reuchlin, Erasmus, and Melanchthon, who had inves- tigated the most important docimients in the different periods of Greek literature, and possessed a general knowledge of the historical growth of the Greek ftad arranged scientifically by a man of the most extensive learning, and of the sonndest principles of criticism. His work may indeed be considered as bringing to its conclusion an important period of Sanskrit philology, which had taken its beginning with Sir W. Jones's translation of l^nntala. Indische Alterthums-Kunde, von Chriatian Laisen. Bonn, 1847—1858. B 2 4 HISTOBY OF SANSKRIT PHILOLOGY. mind. Learned Greeks who were taking refuge in the west of Europe, particularly in Italy, had brought with them a suflScient knowledge to teach their lan- guage and literature ; and they were able and ready to guide the studies of those who were afterwards to contribute to the revival of classical learning in Europe. Men began where they ought to begin, namely, with Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides, and not with Anacreontic poetry or Neo-Platonist philo- sophy. But when our earliest Sanskrit scholars directed their attention to Indian literature, the dif- ficulties they had to struggle with were far greater. Not to mention the burning and enervating sky of India, and the burden of their official occupations, men like Halhed, Wilkins, and Sir W. Jones could hardly find a single Brahman who would undertake to teach them his sacred idiom. When, after some time, learned Pandits became more willing to impart their knowledge to Europeans, their own views of Indian history and literature were more apt to mislead their pupils than to guide them, in a truly historical direction. Thus it happened that, at the beginning of Sanskrit philology, preference was given either to works which still enjoyed amongst the Hindus them^ selves a great, but frequently undeserved, popularity, or to those which by their poetical beauty attracted the attention of men of taste. Everything Indian, whether Manu's Code of Laws, the Bhagavadgltft, Sakuntala, or the Hitopade^a, was at that time con- sidered to be of great and extravagant antiquity, and it was extremely difficult for European scholars to form a right opinion on the real merits of Indian literature. The literary specimens received from India were generally fragments only of larger works : HISTORY OF SANSKRIT PHILOLOGY. 5 or, if not, they had been chosen so indiscriminately from different and widely distant periods, that it was impossible to derive from them an adequate know* ledge of the rise and fall of the national literature of India. Herder, in other respects an excellent judge of ancient national poetry, committed himself to some extraordinary remarks on Indian literature. In his criticism on l§akuntala, written in the form of letters to a friend, he says : " Do you not wish with me, that instead of these endless religious books of the Yedas, Upavedas, and Upangas, they would give us the more useful and more agreeable works of the Indians, and especially their best poetry of every kind ? It is here the mind and character of a nation IS best brought to life before us, and I gladly admits that I have received a truer and more real notion of the manner of thinking among the ancient Indians from this one iSakuntala, than from all their Upnekats and Bagavedams." ^ The fact is that at that time Herder's view on the endless religious books of the Vedas, could only have been formed from a wretched translation of the Bagavedam, as he calls it, — that is, the Bhftgavatapur&na, — a Sanskrit work composed as many centuries after as the Yedas were before Christ ; or from the Ezour-vedam, a very coarse for- gery, if, indeed, it was intended as such, written, as it appears, by a native servant, for the use of the famous Jesuit missionary in India, Roberto de No- bilibus.^ > Herder*8 Schriften, vol. ix. p. 226, Zar schonen Literatur und Kanse. Tubingen, 1807. * Cf. Account of a Discovery of a Modem Imitation of the B 3 6 HISTORY OF SANSKRIT PHILOLOGY. Even at a much later time, men who possessed the true tact of an historian, like Niebuhr, have abstained from passing sentence on the history of a nation whose literature had only just been recovered, and had not yet passed through the ordeal of philological criticism. In his Lectures on Ancient History, Niebuhr leaves a place open for India, to be filled up when the pure metal of history should have been extracted from the ore of Brahmanic exaggeration and superstition. Other historians, however, thought they could do what Niebuhr had left undone; and after perusing some poems of K&lid&sa, some fables of the Hitopade6a, some verses of the Ananda-lahari, or the mystic poetry of the Bhagavadgttd., they gave, with the aid of Mega- sthenes and ApoUonius of Tyana, a so-called historical account of the Indian nation, without being aware that they were using as contemporary witnesses, authors as distant from each other as Dante and Virgil. No nation has, in this respect, been more unjustly treated than the Indian. Not only have general conclusions been drawn from the most scanty materials, but the most questionable and spurious authorities have been employed without the least historical investigation or the exercise of that critical ingenuity, which, from its peculiar character, Indian literature requires more than any other.* Yedas, with Remarks on the genuine works, by Fr. Ellis ; Asiatic Researches, xiv. p. 1 — 59: Calcutta, 1822. 1 Professor H. H. Wilson, in the preface to his translation of the Vishnu-Purana, remarks : " It is the boast of inductive philo- sophy that it draws its conclusions from the careful observation and accumulation of facts; and it is equally the business of aU philosophical research to determine its facts before it ventures HISTORY OF SANSKBrr PHILOLOGY. 7 There is another circumstance which has retarded the progress of Sanskrit philology : an affectation of that learned pedantry which has done so much mis- chief to Greek and Latin scholarship. We have much to learn, no doubt, from classical scholars, and nothing can be a better preparation for a Sanskrit student than to have passed through the school of a Bentley or a Hermann. But in Greek and Latin scholarship the distinction between useful and useless knowledge has almost disappeared, and the real objects of the study of these ancient languages have been well nigh forgotten. More than half of the publications of clas* sical scholars have tended only to impede our access to the master- works of the ancients ; and a sanction has been given to a kind of learning, which, however creditable to the individual, is of no benefit to the public at large. A similar spirit has infected Sanskrit philology. Sanskrit texts have been edited, on which no rational man ought to waste his time. Essays have been written on subjects on which it is folly to be wise. These remarks are not intended to disparage critical scholarship or to depreciate the results which have been obtained by minute and abstruse erudition. Bat scholars who devote all their time to critical nice- ties and recondite subtleties are apt to forget that these are but accessories. Knowledge which has no object beyond itself is, in most cases, but a pretext fbr vanity. It is so easy, even for the most superfi- upon speculation. This procedure has not been observed in the investigation of the mythology and traditions of the Hindus.