5>> I>> ':^ _ 5X» ^>> :X> ^>3>J> LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.] Shelf. JV\ i 5 . • 1 335- Bv>5> UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. s>>-::3i> :^ -^^ ^ ?>^>'l^^^^^^ '^^3 t^#>^^ >^o»3> :> < :>^^2:^ <. -y ^ ^ ::» l^ -m> ^3^^% 3> >' -^ >3» ^> 5 " ^v> > ^^ •\^%#.f / July 2, 1883 Price, 25 Cents. Ah No. 92. iBsned Fortnightly. Copyright, 1883, by Fttnk & Wasvallb. Entered in New York Post-Office as seoond-dass mail matter. Subscription price, per year, |S. 'mm •^ ! The second half of the Subscription Price for the 1^ STANDAnn LIBRARY, 1883 Series, is now due. This ^^ ^ooTc is the 13th of the issue, '^ "r^ Subscribers will please remit at cnce, •^ . - •y Books soon to be Issued In TIf£ STANDARD lilBRART, ^ see last cover pag^e. C CP INDIA, WHAT CAN IT TEACH US? By MAX MULLER. Max Miiller stands in the front rank of the noblest geniuses and best scholars of our age. It is not necessary to speak of his wonderful abilities and profound learning. Had any proof of the above estimate of him been wanting, this book, " India, What CAN IT Trach Us ?" would have abundantly supplied it. The subject of the book was first discussed in a series of lectures which he was invited to deliver before the students of the University of Cambridge, England, by the Authorities of that venerable seat of learning. They were then put together in a book, and we now have the pleasure of giving them in this cheap form to our American readers. The American edition has been greatly improved by Prof. Alexander Wilder, who has written an able introduc- tion and introduced some notes for readers on this side of the Atlantic. The book will be found to contain a world of information, teaching new and most invaluable facts and lessons, yet apart from this it would be a most profitable task to read it once every month if only to cultivate the author's inimitable style. Pew readers will receive all Max Miiller's teaching. Every intelligent reader, con- versant with English literature, will know this from his other writings. We exhort every one who may be lacking in tolerance, before reading the book, to read his " Dedication " to it. Nothing in the English language which we ever read breathes a nobler, more simple, more childlike and tolerant spirit, while at the same time it is maniy and fearless. Eead it by all means. EARLIER NTJJVtBERS, PAXTON HOOD'S LIFE OF CROMWELL. No. 80, Standabd Libbaey (No. 1, 1883 Series) Price 25 cents SCIENCE IN 'short " CHAPTERS. Bt W. Mattieit Wili^iams, F.R.S.A., F.C.S. No. 81, Standard Library (No. 2, 1883 Series). Price, 35 cents. AMERICAN HUMORISTS. Bt R. H. Haweis. No. 82, Standard Library (No. 3. 1883 Series). Price, 15 cents. LIVES OP ILLUSTRIOUS SHOEMAKERS. By William Edward Winks. No. 83, Standard Library (No. 4, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. By Thomas Gibson Bowles. No. 84, Standard Library (No. 5, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. THE HIGHWAYS OP LITERATURE ; or. What to Read and How to Read. By David Pryde, M.A., LL.D., P.R.S.E., P.S.A., etc. No, 85, Standard Library (No. 6, 1883 Series). . Price, 15 cents. COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. A Record op a Summer. By Grant Allen. No. 86, Standard Library (No. 7, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. THE ESSAYS OP GEORGE ELIOT. Complete. Collected and arranged, with an Introduction on her " Analysis of Motives." By Nathan Shkppard. No. 87, Standard Library (No. 8, 1883 Series). Price, 25 cents. AN HOUR WITH CHARLOTTE BRONTE ; or, Plowbrs prom a Yobkshibb Moor. By Laura C. Holloway. No. 88, Standard Library (No. 9, 1883 Series). Price, 15 cents. SAM HOBART. By Justin D. Fulton, D.D. No. 89. Standard. Library (No. 10, 1883 Series). Price. 25 cents. SUCCESSFUL MEN OF TO-DAY. By W. P. Crafts No. 90, Standard Li- brary (No. li, 1883 Series). Prce, 25 cents. * " NATURE STUDIES. By Grant Allen, Andrew Wilson, Thomas Foster, ^o^y^^^ Clodd, and Richard A. Proctor, No, 91 Standard Li»RART (No. 19, 1883 Series). Price, 25 ceots. INDIA: WHAT CAN IT TEACH DS? DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE y BY F.^AX MiJLLEE, K.M. >' r' TBXT AND FOOT-NOTES COMPLETE. WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY ^. PKOF. ALEXANDER WILDER, M.D. JiN 30 1883' V NEW YORK : FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, 10 AND 12 Dey Street. J^OTU OF THE AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. Tms volume contains the entire text of the English edition, also all the foot- notes Those portions of the Appendix which serve to illustrate the text are inserted in their appropriate places as foot-notes. That part of the Appendix which is of special interest only to the Sanscrit scholar is omitted. , ^ . ^ ^ , , Professor Max Mliller writes in this book not as a theologian but as a^scholar, not intending either to attack or defend Christian theology. His style is charming, because he always writes with freedom and animation. In some passages possibly hislanonage might be misunderstood. We have thought it best to add a tew notes. ° The notes of the American editor are signed " A. W. ;" ours, ' Am. I'abs. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by FUNK & WAGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington^ D. C. (// DEDICATED TO E. B. 00 WELL M.A., LL.D., PROFESSOR OP SANSKRIT ATSTD FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE IN THB TJNIVBRSITT OF CAMBRIDOB. Mt dear Cowell : As these Lectures would never have been written or delivered but for your hearty encouragement, I hope you will now allow me to dedi- cate them to you, not only as a token of my sincere admiration of your great achievements as an Oriental scholar, but also as a memorial of our friendship, now more than thirty years old, a friendship which has grown from year to year, has weathered many a storm, and will last, I trust, for what to both of us may remain of our short passage from shore to shore. I must add, however, that in dedicating these Lectures to you, I do not wish to throw upon you any responsi- bility for the views which I have put forward in them. I know that you do not agree with some of my views on the ancient religion and literature of India, and I am well aware that with regard to the recent date which I have assigned to the whole of what is commonly called the Classical Sanskrit Literature, I stand almost alone. No, if friendship can claim any voice in the courts of science and Hterature, let me assure you that I shall con- sider your outspoken criticism of my Lectures as the very best proof of your true and honest friendship. I have through life considered it the greatest honor if real scholars, I mean men not only of learning, but of judg- ment and character, have considered my writings worthy of a severe and searching criticism ; and I have cared far more for the production of one single new fact, though Vi DEDICATION". it spoke against me, than for any amount of empty praise or empty abuse. Sincere d votion to his studies and an unswerving love of truth ought to furnish the true scholar with an armor impermeable to flattery or abuse, and with a visor that shuts out no ray of light, from whatever quarter it may come. More light, more truth, more facts, more combination of facts, these are his quest. And if in that quest he fails, as many have failed before him, he knows that in the search for truth failures are sometimes the condition of victory, and the true conquerors often those whom the world calls the vanquished. You know better than anybody else the present state of Sanskrit scholarship. You know that at present and for some time to come Sanskrit scholarship means dis- covery 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. ISTo 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. Burnell, "that no trouble is thrown away which saves trouble to others." We want men who will work hard, even at the risk of seeing their labors unrequited ; we want strong and bold men who are not afraid of storms and shipwrecks. The worst sailors are not those who suffer shipwreck, but those who only dabble in pud- dles and are afraid of wetting their feet. It is easv now to criticise the labors of Sir William ^hich, I believe, can best be met by inspiring the new civil servants with new and higher interests during their stay in India. I knew the late Professor Wilson, our Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, for many yeai*s, and often listened with deep interest to his Indian reminiscences. Let me read you what he. Professor Wilson, says of his native friends, associates, and servants : * " I lived, both from necessity and choice, very much among the Hindus, and had opportunities of becoming- acquainted with them in a greater variety of situations than those in which they usually come under the observa- tion of Europeans. In the Calcutta mint, for instance, I was in daily personal communication with a numerous body of artificers, mechanics, and laborers, and always found among them cheerful and unwearied industry, good-humored compliance with the will of their superi- * Mill's "History of British India," ed. Wilson, vol. i., p. 375. 58 LECTURE II. ors, and a readiness to make whatever exertions were demanded from tliem ; there was among them no drunk- enness, no disorderly conduct, no insubordination. It would not be true to say that there was no dishonesty, but it was comparatively rare, invariably petty, and much less formidable than, I believe, it is necessary to guard against in other mints in other countries. There was considerable skill and ready docility. So far from there being any servility, there was extreme frankness, and I should say that where there is confidence without fear, frankness is one of the most universal features in the Indian character. Let the people feel sure of the temper and good-will of their superiors, and there is an end of reserve and timidity, without the slightest depart- ure from respect. . . ." Then, speaking of the much-abused Indian Pandits, he says : '^ The studies which engaged my leisure brought me into connection with the men of learning, and in them I found the similar merits of industry, in- telligence, cheerfulness, frankness, with others peculiar to their avocation. A very common characteristic of tliese men, and of the Hindus especially, was a sim- plicity truly childish, and a total unacquaintance with the business and manners of life. Where that feature was lost, it was chiefly by those who had been long familiar with Europeans. Among the Pandits or the learned Hindus there prevailed great ignorance and great dread of the European character. There is, in- deed, very little intercourse between any class of Euro- pei]:is and Hindu scholars, and it is not wonderful, there- fore, that mutual misapprehension should prevail. ' ' Speaking, lastly, of the higher classes in Calcutta and elsewhere. Professor Wilson says that he witnessed among them " polished manners, clearness and compre- TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE HINDUS. 59 hensiveness of understanding, liberality of feeling, and independence of principle that would have stamped them gentlemen in any country in the world." " With some of this class," he adds, '' I formed friendships which 1 trust to enjoy through life." I have often heard Professor Wilson speak in the same, and in even stronger terms of his old friends in India, and his correspondence with Ram Comul Sen, the grandfather of Keshub Chunder Sen,* a most orthodox, not to say bigoted, Hindu, which has lately been pub- lished, shows on what intimate terms Englishmen and Hindus may be, if only the advances are made on the English side. There is another Professor of Sanskrit, of whom your University may well be proud, and who could speak on this subject with far greater authority than 1 can. He too will tell you, and 1 have no doubt has often told you, that if only you look out for friends among the Hindus, you will find them, and you may trust them. There is one book which for many years i have been in the habit of recommending, and another against v\^hich I have always been warning those of the candidates for the Indian Civil Service whom I happened to see at Ox- ford ; and I believe both the advice and the warning have in several cases borne the very best fruit. The book which I consider most mischievous, nay, which 1 hold responsible for some of the greatest misfortunes that have happened to India, is Mill's "History of British India," even with the antidote against its poison, which is supplied by Professor Wilson's notes. The book which I recommend, and which I wish might be pub- * Keshub Chunder Sen is the present spiritual director of the Brahmo Samagf, the theistic organization founded by the late Kam- mohun Eoy.— A. W. 60 LECTURE • II. lislied again in a cheaper form, so as to make it more generally accessible, is Colonel Sleeman's '' Kambles and Eecollections of an Indian Official," published in 1844, but written originally in 1835-1836. Mill's " History," no doubt, you all know, particu- larly the candidates for the Indian Civil Service, who, I am sorry to say, are recommended to read it, and are ex- amined in it. Still, in order to substantiate my strong condemnation of the book, I shall have to give a few proofs : Mill in his estimate of the Hindu cliaracter is chiefly guided by Dubois, a French missionary, and by Orme and Buchanan, Tennant, and Ward, all of them neither very competent nor very unprejudiced judges. Mill,* however, picks out all that is most unfavorable from their works, and omits the qualifications which even these writers felt bound to give to their wholesale con- demnation of the Hindus. He quotes as serious, for in- stance, what was said in joke,t namely, that '^ a Brah- man is an ant's nest of lies and impostures." Next to the charge of untruthfulness, Mill upbraids the Hindus for what he calls their litigiousness. He writes : if ''As often as courage fails them in seeking more daring grati- fication to their hatred and revenge, their malignity finds a vent in the channel of litigation." Without imputing dishonorable motives, as Mill does, the same fact might be stated in a different way, by saying, ''As often as their conscience and respect of law keep them from seeking more daring gratification to their hatred and rev(3?ige, say by murder or poisoning, their trust in Eng- lish justice leads them to appeal to our courts of law." Dr. Robertson, in his " Historical Disquisitions concern- * Mill's "History," ed. Wilson, vol. i., p. 368, f L. c. p. 325. I L. c. p. 329. TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE Hli^q^DUS. Gl ing India,'' * seems to have considered the litigious sub- tlety of the Hindus as a sign of high civilization rather than of barbarism, but he is sharj^ly corrected by Mr. Mill, who tells him that " nowhere is this subtlety car- ried higher than among the wildest of the Irish." That courts of justice, like the English, in which a verdict was not to be obtained, as formerly in Mohammedan courts, by bribes and corruption, should at first have proved very attractive to the Hindus, need not surprise us. But is it really true that the Hindus are more fond of litigation than other nations ? If we consult Sir Thomas Munro, the eminent Governor of Madras, and the powerful advocate of the Kyotwar settlements, he tells us in so many words : f ' ' I have had ample oppor- tunity of observing the Hindus in every situation, and I can affirm, that they are not litigious. ' ' J But Mill goes further still, and in one place he actually assures his readers § that a ' ' Brahman may put a man to death when he lists." In fact, he represents the Hindus as such a monstrous mass of all vices, that, as Colonel Vans Kennedy || remarked, society could not have held together if it had really consisted of such reprobates only. Nor does he seem to see the full bear- ing of his remarks. Surely, if a Brahman might, as he says, put a man to death whenever he lists, it would be the strongest testimony in their favor that you hardly ever hear of their availing themselves of such a privi- lege, to say nothing of the fact — and a fact it is — that, according to statistics, the number of capital sentences * P. 217. f Mill's "History," vol. i., p. 329. :{: Mann, VIII. 43, says : ''Neither a King himself nor his officers must ever promote litigation ; nor ever neglect a lawsuit instituted by others." § Mill's " History," vol. i., p. 327. |j L. c. p. 368. 62 LECTURE li. was one in every 10,000 in England, but only one in every million in Bengal.^ Colonel Sleeman's ^'Rambles" are less known than they deserve to be. To give you an idea of the man, I must read you some extracts from the book. His sketches being originally addressed to his sister, this is how he writes to her : '' My deak Sister : Were any one to ask your coun- trymen in India, what had been their greatest source of pleasure while there, perhaps nine in ten would say the letters which they receive from their sisters at home. And while thus contributing so much to our happiness, they no doubt tend to make us better citizens of the world and servants of government than we should otlierwise be ; for in our ' struggles through life ' in India, we have all, more or less, an eye to the appro- bation of those circles which our kind sisters represent, who may therefore be considered in the exalted light of a valuable species of unpaid magistracy to the govern- ment of India. ' ' There is a touch of the old English chivalry even in these few words addressed to a sister whose approbation he values, and with whom he hoped to spend the winter of his days. Having been, as he confesses, idle in an- swering letters, or rather, too busy to find time for long letters, he made use of his enforced leisure, while on his way from the l!^erbuddah River to the Himmaleh Moun- tains, in search of health, to give to his sister a full account of his impressions and experiences in India. * See Elphinstone, "History of India," ed. Cowell, p. 219, note. " Of the 232 sentences of death. 64 only were carried out in England, while the 59 sentences of death in Bengal were all carried out." -TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE Hli^DUS. 63 Though what ho wrote was intended at first '^ to interest and amuse liis sister only and the other members of his family at home," he adds, in a more serious tone : '' Of one thing I must beg you to be assured, that I have nowhere indulged in fiction, either in tlie narra- tive, the recollections, or the conversations. What I relate on the testimony of others, I believe to be true ; and what I relate on my own, you may rely upon as being so." When placing his volumes before the public at large in 1844, he expresses a hope that they may "tend to make the people of India better understood by those of our countrymen whose destinies are cast among them, and inspire more kindly feelings toward them. ' ' You may ask why I consider Colonel Sleeman so trustworthy an authority on the Indian character, more trustworthy, for instance, than even so accurate and unprejudiced an observer as Professor Wilson. My an- swer is — because Wilson lived chiefiy in Calcutta, while Colonel Sleeman saw India, vv^here alone the true India can be seen, namely, in the village-communities. For many years he was employed as Commissioner for the suppression of Thuggee. The Thugs were professional assassins, who committed their murders under a kind of religious sanction. They were originally ''all Moham- medans, but for a long time past Mohammedans and Hindus had been indiscriminately associated in the gangs, the former class, however, still predominating. ' ' ^ In order to Imnt up these gangs. Colonel Sleeman luid * Sir Ch. Trevelyan, Christianity and Hinduism, 1882, p. 42. This will be news to many. It has been quite common to in- clude the Thugs with the worshiijpers of Bhavani, the consort of .s'iva. The word signifies a deceiver, which eliminates it from every re- ligious association. - A. W. 64 LECTURE II. constantly to live among the people in the country, to gain their confidence, and to watch the good as well as the bad features in their character. l^ow what Colonel Sleeman continually insists on is that no one knows the Indians who does not know them in their village- communities — what we should now call their coimiiunes. It is that village-life which in India has given its pecuHar impress to the Indian character, more so than in any other country we know. When in Indian history we hear so much ol kings and emperors, of rajahs and maharajahs, we are apt to think of India as an Eastern monarchy, ruled by a central power, and without any trace of that self-government which forms the pride of England. But those who have most care- fully studied the political life of India tell you the very opposite. The political unit, or the social cell in India has always been, and, in spite of repeated foreign conquests, is still tlie village- community. Some of these political units will occasionally combine or be combined for common purposes (such a confederacy being called a grama^ala), but each is perfect in itself. When we read in the Laws of Manu * of officers appointed to rule over ten, twenty, a hundred, or a thousand of these villages, that means no more than that they were responsible for the collec- tion of taxes, and generally for the good behavior of these villages. And when, in later times, we hear of circles of eighty-four villages, the so-called Chourasees (A^turasiti f), and of three hundred and sixty villages, this too seems to refer to fiscal arrangements only. To the ordinary Hindu, I mean to ninety-nine in every * Marni VII. 115. \ H. M. Elliot, "Supplement to the Glossary of Indian Terms," p. 151. TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE HINDUS. 65 hundred, the village was his world, and the sphere of public opinion, with its beneficial influences on individ^ uals, seldom extended beyond the horizon of his village."^ Colonel Sleeman was one of the first who called atten- tion to the existence of these village-communities in India, and their importance in the social fabric of the whole country both in ancient and in modern times ; and though they have since become far better known and celebrated through the writings of Sir Henry Maine, it is still both interesting and instructive to read Colonel Sleeman' s account. He writes as a mere observer, and uninfluenced as yet by any theories on the development of early social and political life among the Aryan nations in general. I do not mean to say that Colonel Sleeman was the first who pointed out the palpable fact that the whole of India is parcelled out into estates of villages. Even so early an observer as Megasthenes f seems to have been struck by the same fact when he says that " in India the husbandmen with their wives and children live in the country, and entirely avoid going into town." What Colonel Sleeman was the first to point out was that all * I see from Dr. Hunter's latest statistical tables that the whole number of towns and villages in British India amounts to 493,429. Out of this number 448,320 have less than 1000 inhabitants, and may be called villages. In Bengal, where the growth of towns has been most encouraged through Government establishments, the total number of homesteads is 117,042, and more than half of these contain less than 200 inhabitants. Only 10,077 towns in Bengal have more than 1000 inhabitants, that is, no more than about a seventeenth part of all the settlements are anything but what we should call substantial villages. In the North-Western Provinces the last census gives us 105,124 villages, against 297 towns. See London Times, 14th Aug. 1882. f "Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian," bjr McCrindle, p. 43, 66 LEGTUKE II. the native virtues of the Hiudns are intimately connected with their village-hfe. That village-life, however, is naturally the least known to English officials, nay, the very presence of an English official is often said to be sufficient to drive away those native virtues which distinguish both the private life and the ]3ublic administration of justice and equity in an Indian village.^' Take a man out of his village- community, and you remove him from all the restraints of society. He is out of his element, and, under temp- tation, is more likely to go wrong than to remain true to the traditions of his home-life. Even between village and village the usual I'estraints of public morality are not always recognized. What would be called theft or rob- bery at home is called a successful raid or conquest if directed against distant villages ; and what would be falsehood or trickery in private life is honored by the name of policy and diplomacy if successful against stran- gers. On the other hand, the rules of hospitality ap- plied only to people of other villages, and a man of the same village could never claim the right of an Atithi^ or guest, f Let us hear now what Colonel Sleeman tells us about, the moral character of the members of these village- communities, if and let us not forget that the Commis- * "Perjury seems to be committed by the meanest and encouraged by some of the better sort among the Hindus and Mussulmans, ■with as little remorse as if it were a proof of ingenuity, or even a merit." — Sir W, Jones, Address to Grand Jury at Calcutta, in Mill's "Historj^ of India," vol. i., p. 324. "The longer we possess a province, the more common and grave does perjury become." — Sir G. Campbell, quoted by Eev. Samuel Johnson, " Oriental Eeligions, India," p. 288. f YasishZ/ja, translated by Biihler, VIII. 8. :j;Mr. J. D. Baldwin, author of "Prehistoric Nations," declares TRUTHFLTL CHARACTER OF THE HINDUS. 67 sioner for the suppression of Thuggee had ample oppor- tunities of seeing the dark as well as the bright side of the Indian character. He assures us that falsehood or lying between mem- bers of the same village is almost unknown. Speaking of some of the most savage tribes, the Gonds, for instance, he maintains that nothing would induce them to tell a lie, though they would think nothing of lifting a herd of cattle from a neighboring plain. Of these men it might perhaps be said that they have not yet learned the value of a lie ; yet even such blissful ignorance ought to count in a nation's character. But I am not pleading here for Gonds, or Bhils, or Santhals, and other non- Aryan tribes. I am speaking of the Aryan and more or less civilized inhabitants of India. Now among them, where rights, duties, and interests begin to clash in one and the same village, public opin- that this system of village-communities existed in India long before the Aryan conquest. He attributes it to Cushite or ^thiopic in- fluence, and with great plausibility. Nevertheless, the same system 'flourished in prehistoric Greece, even till the Koman conquests. Mr. Palgrave observed it existing in Arabia. " Oman is less a king- dom than an aggregation of municipalities," he remarks ; " each town, each village has its separate existence and corporation, while towns and villages, in their turn, are subjected to one or other of the ancestral chiefs." The Ionian and Phoenician cities existed by a similar tenure, as did also the Free Cities of Europe. It appears, indeed, to have been the earlier form of rule. Megasthenes noticed it in India. '* The village-communities," says Sir Charles Metcalf, ' ' are little republics, having everything they want within them- selves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They se-em to last where nothing else lasts." These villages usually consist of the holders of the land, those who farm and cultivate it, the estab- lished village-servants, priest, blacksmith, carpenter, accountant, washerman, potter, barber, watchman, shoemaker, etc. The tenure and law of inheritance varies with the different native races, but ten- antship for a specific period seems to be the most common. — A. W. 68 LECTURE II. ion, in its limited sphere, seems strong enough to deter even an evil-disposed person from telling a falsehood. The fear of the gods also has not yet lost its power. "^ In most villages there is a sacred tree, a pipal-tree (Ficus Tndica), and the gods are supposed to delight to sit am.ong its leaves, and listen to the music of their rust- ling. The deponent takes one of these leaves in his hand, and invokes the god, who sits above him, to crush him, or those dear to him, as he crushes the leaf in his hand, if he speaks anything but the truth. He then plucks and crushes the leaf, and states what he has to say. The pipal-tree is generally supposed to be occupied by one of the Hindu deities, while the large cotton-tree, particularly among the wilder tribes, is supposed to be the abode of local gods, all the more terrible because entrusted with the police of a small settlement only. In their puncliayets, Sleeman tells us, men adhere habitu- ally and religiously to the truth, and '^ I have had before me hundreds of cases," he says, '^ in which a man's prop- erty, liberty, and life has depended upon his telling a lie, and he has refused to tell it." Could many an English judge say the same ? In their own tribunals under the pipal-tree or cotton- tree, imagination commonly did what the deities, who were supposed to preside, had the credit of doing. If the deponent told a lie, he believed that the god who sat on his sylvan throne above him, and searched the heart ^f man, must knoAV it ; and from that moment he knew no rest, he was always in dread of his vengeance. If any accident happened to him, or to those dear to him, it vfas attributed to this offended deity ; and if no acci- * " Sleenaan," vol. ii.^ p. Ill, TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE HmDUS. 69 dent happened, some evil was brought about bj his own disordered imagination.'^ It was an excellent supersti- tion, inculcated in the ancient law-books, that the ances- tors watched the answer of a witness, because, according as it was true or false, they themselves w^ould go to heaven or to hell.f Allow me to read you the abstract of a conversation between an Enghsh ofl&cial and a native law-officer as reported by Colonel Sleeman. The native lawyer was asked what he thought would be the effect of an act to dispense with oaths on the Koran and Ganges-water, and to substitute a solemn declaration made in the name of God, and under the same penal liabilities as if the Koran or Ganges- water had been in the deponent's hand. ''I have practiced in the courts," the native said, " for thirty years, and during that time 1 have found only three kinds of witnesses — two of whom would, by such an act, be left precisely where they were, while the third would be released by it from a very salutary check." ''And, pray, what are the three classes into which you divide the witnesses in our courts ?" " First, Sir, are those w^ho will always tell the truth, whether they are required to state what they know, in the form of an oath or not. ' ' '' Do you think this a large class ?" ' ' Yes, I think it is ; and 1 have found among them many whom nothing on earth could make to swerve from the truth. Do what you please, you could never frighten or bribe them into a deliberate falsehood. " The second are those who will not hesitate to tell a lie when they have a motive for it, and are not restrained J * Sleeman, " Eambles," vol. ii., p. 116. f Vasish/Aa XVI. 32. 70 LECTURE II. 1);/ an oatli. In taking an oatli, they are afraid of two things, the anger of God and tlie odium of men. ^' Only three days ago," he continued, '^ I required a power of attorney from a lady of rank, to enable me to act for her in a case pending before the court in this town. It was gis^en to me by her brother, and two wit- nesses came to declare that she had given it. ^ ISTow, ' said I, ' this lady is known to live under the curtain, and you will be asked by the judge whether you saw her give this paper : what will you say ? ' They both replied : ^ If the judge asks us the question without an oath, we will say '^ Yes ^'^^ it will save much trouble, and we know that she did give the paper, though we did not really see her give it ; but if he puts the Koran into our liands, we must say " iV^(9," for we should otherwise be pointed at by all the town as perjured wretches — our enemies would soon tell everybody that we had taken a false oath.' " E'ow," the native lawyer went on, '' the form of an oath is a great check on this sort of persons. '^ The third class consists of men who will tell lies whenever they have a sufficient motive, whether they have the Koran or Ganges-water in their hand or not. Nothing will ever prevent their doing so ; and the dec- laration which you propose would be just as well as any other for them." H^Which class do you consider the most numerous of the ttiree?" " I consider the second the most numerous, and wish the oath to be retained for them." '^ That is, of all the men you see examined in our courts, you think the most come under the class of those who will, under the influence of strong motives, tell lies, if they have not the Koran or Ganges -water in their hands ?" TRUTHFUL CHARACTEK OF THE HINDUS. 71 ' ' But do not a great many of those whom you con- sider to be induded among the second class come from the village-communities — the peasantry of the country ?" "Yes." " And do you not think that the greatest part of those men who will tell lies in the court, under the influence of strong motives, unless they have the Koran or Ganges- water in their hands, would refuse to tell lies, if questioned before the people of their villages, among the circle in which they live ?" " Of course I do ; three-fourths of those who do not scruple to lie in the courts, would be ashamed to lie before their neighbors, or the elders of their village." '^ You think that the people of the village- communi- ties are more ashamed to tell lies before their neighbors than the people of towns ?" " Much more — there is no comparison." " And the people of towns and cities bear in India but a small proportion to the people of the village-communi- ties ?" '' I should think a very small proportion indeed." " Then you think that in the mass of the population of India, out of our courts, the first class, or those who speak truth, whether they have the Koran or Ganges- water in their hands or not, would be found rnore numerous than the other two ?" " Certainly I do ; if they were always to be ques- tioned before their neighbors or elders, so that they could feel that their neighbors and elders could know what they say. ' ' It was from a simple sense of justice that I felt bound to quote this testimony of Colonel Sleeman as to the truthful character of the natives of India, when left to 72 LECTUEE II. themselves. My interest lies altogether with the people of India, wJien left to themselves, and historically I should like to draw a line after the year one thousand after Christ. When you read the atrocities committed by the Mohammedan conquerors of India from that time to the time when England stepped in and, whatever may be said by her envious critics, made, at all events, the broad principles of our common humanity respected once more in India, the wonder, to my mind, is how any nation could have survived such an Inferno without being turned into devils themselves. Now, it is quite true that during the two thousand years which precede the time of Mahmud of Gazni, India has had but few foreign visitors, and few foreign critics ; still it is surely extremely strange that whenever, either in Greek, or in Chinese, or in Persian, or in Arab writings, we meet with any attempts at describing the distinguishing features in the national character of the Indians, regard for truth and justice should always be mentioned first. Ktesias, the famous Greek physician of Artaxerxes Mnemon (present at the battle of Cunaxa, 404 e.g.), the first Greek writer who tells us anything about the char- acter of the Indians, such as he heard it described at the Persian court, has a special chapter " On the Justice of the Indians."* Megfisihe7ies,\ the ambassador of Seleucus Nicator at the court of Sandrocottus in Palibothra (Paz^aliputra, the modern Patna), states that thefts were extremely rare, and that they honored truth and virtue. J * KtesiaB Fragmenta (ed. Didot), p. 81. f See " Indian Antiquary," 1876, p. 333. \ Megasthenis Eragmenta (ed. Didot) in " Fragm. Histor. Graec." vol. ii,, p. 426 b : klrjQetdv re o/nolcjg Kal apcryv anodtXavrac. TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE HlifDUS. 73 Arrian (in tlie second century, the pupil of Epictetus), when speaking of the j)^^hlic overseers or superintend- ents in India, says : ^ " They oversee what goes on in the country or towns, and rej^ort everything to the king, where the people have a king, and to the magistrates, where the people are self -governed, and it is against use! and wont for these to give in a false report ; hut indeed no Indian is accused of lying, f The Chinese, who come next in order of time, bear the same, I believe, unanimous testimony in favor of the honesty and veracity of the Hindus. [The earliest witness is Bu-we, a relative of Fan-chen, King of Siam, who between 222 and 227 a.d, sailed round the whole of India, till he reached the mouth of the Indus, and then explored the country. After his return to Sinto, he received four Yueh-chi horses, sent by a king of India as a present to the King of Siam and his ambassa- dor. At the time when these horses arrived in Siam (it took them four years to travel tbere), there was staying at the court of Siam an ambassador of the Emperor of China, Khang-thai, and this is the account which he received of the kingdom of India : '' It is a kingdom in wliicli the religion of Buddha flourishes. The inhabi- tants are straightforward and honest, and the soil is very fertile. The king is called Meu-lun, and his capi- tal is surrounded by walls," etc. This was in about 231 A.D. In 605 we hear again of the Emperor Ya^g-ti sending an ambassador, Fei-tu, to India, and this is what among other things he points out as peculiar to the Hindus: "They believe in solemn oaths. "]:j: Let me quote Iliouen-thsang, the most famous of the Chinese * Indica, cap. xii. 6. f See McCrindle in " Indian Antiquary," 1876, p. ^2. \ See Stanislas Julien, Journal Asiatique, 1847, Aout, pp. 98, 105. 74 LECTURE II. Buddhist pilgrims, who visited India in the seventh cen- tury."^ '' Though the Indians," he writes, " are of a light temperament, they are distinguished by the straightfor- wardness and honesty of their character. With regard to riches, they never take anything unjustly ; with regard to justice, they make even excessive concessions. . . . Straightforwardness is the distinguishing feature of their administration. ' ' ^ If we turn to the accounts given by the Mohammedan conquerors of India, we find Idrisi, in his Geography (written in the eleventh century), summing up their opinion of the Indians in the following w^ords : t " The Indians are naturally inclined to justice, and never depart from it in their actions. Their good faith, honesty, and fidelity to their engagements are w^ell known, and they are so famous for these qualities that people fiock to their country from every side. ' ' Again, in the thirteenth century, Shems-ed-din Abu Abdallah quotes the following judgment of Bedi ezr Zenan : '' The Indians are innumerable, like grains of sand, free from all deceit and violence. They fear neither death nor life. ":{: In the thirteenth century we have the testimony of Marco Polo,§ who thus speaks of the Abraiar^ian^ a name by which he seems to mean the Brahmans who, though not traders by profession, might well have been em- ployed for great commercial transactions by the king. This was particularly the case during times which the * Vol. ii., p. 83. f Elliot, " History of India," vol. i., p. 88. \ See Mehren : " Manuel de la Cosmographie du moyen age, tra- duction de I'ouvrage de Shems-ed-din Abou Abdallah de Daiuas« Paris : Leroux, 1874, p. 371. § " Marco Polo/' ed. H. Yule, vol. ii., p. 350. TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE HIN-DUS. 75 Bralimans would call times of distress, when many things were allowed which at other times were forbidden by the laws. '^ Yqu must know," Marco Polo says, '' that these Abraiaman are the best merchants in the world, and the most truthful, for they would not tell a lie for anything on earth." In tlie fourteenth centuiy we have Friar Jordanus, who goes out of his way to tell us that the people of Lesser India (South and Western India) are true in speech and eminent in justice."^' In the fifteenth century, Kamal-eddin Abd-errazak Samarkandi (1413-1482), who went as ambassador of the Kliakan to the prince of Kalikut and to the King of Vidyanagara (about 1440-144:5), bears testimony to the perfect security which merchants enjoy in that country, f In the sixteenth century, Abu Fazl, the minister of the Emperor Akbar, says in his Ay in Akbari : ^' The Hindus are religious, affable, cheerful, lovers of justice, given to retirement, able in business, admirers of truth, grateful and of unbounded fidelity ; and their soldiers know not what it is to fly from the field of battle. :j: And even in quite modern times the Mohammedans seem willing to admit that the Hindus, at all events in their dealings with Hindus, are more straightforward than Mohammedans in their dealings with Mohamme- dans. Thus Meer Sulamut Ali, a venerable old Mussuhrfan, and, as Colonel Sleeman says, a most valuable public ser- vant, was obhged to admit that ^' a Hindu may feel him- * " Marco Polo," vol. ii., p. 354. . f " Notices des Manuscrits," torn, xiv., p. 436. He seems to have been one of the first to state that the Persian text of tlie Kalilah and Dimna was derived from the wise people of India. I Samuel Johnson, " India," p. 294. 76 LECTURE II. self authorized to take in a Mussulman, and might even think it meritorious to do so ; but he would never think it meritorious to take in one of his own religion. There are no less than seventy-two sects of Mohamme- dans ; and every one of these sects would not only take in the followers of every other religion on earth, but every member of every one of the other seventy-one sects ; and the nearer that sect is to his own, the greater the merit of taking in its members."^ So I could go on quoting from book after book, and again and again we should see how it was love of truth that struck all the people who came in contact with India, as the prominent feature in the national character of its inhabitants. 'No one ever accused them of false- hood. There must surely be some ground for thig", for it is not a remark that is frequently made by travellers in foreign countries, even in our time, that their inhabi- tants invariably speak the truth. Read the accounts of English travellers in France, and you will find very little said about French honesty and veracity, while French accounts of England are seldom without a fling at Per- fide Albion ! But if all this is true, how is it, you may well ask, that public opinion in England is so decidedly unfriendly to the people of India; at the utmost tolerates and patronizes them, but will never trust them, never treat thein^ on terms of equality ? I have already hinted at some of the reasons. Public opinion with regard to India is made up in England chiefly by those who have spent their lives in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, or some other of the principal towns in India. The native element in such towns contains * Sleeman, " Rambles," vol. i., p. 63. TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE HINDUS. 77 mostly the most unfavorable specimens of the Indian population. An insight into the domestic life of the more respectable classes, even in towns, is difficult to obtain ; and, when it is obtained, it is extremely difficult to judge of their manners according to our standard of what is proper, respectable, or gentlemanlike. The misunderstandings are frequent and often most gro- tesque ; and such, we must confess, is human nature, that when we hear the different and often most conflict- ing accounts of the character of the Hindus, we are nat- urally skeptical with regard to unsuspected virtues among them, wiaile we are quite disposed to accept un- favorable accounts of their character. Lest I should seem to be pleading too much on the native side of the question, and to exaggerate the diffi- culty of forming a correct estimate of the character of the Hindus, let me appeal to one of the most distin- guished, learned, and judicious members of the Indian- Civil Service, the author of the ^^ History of India," Mountstuart Elphinstone. *' Englishmen in India, ""^ he says, '^ have less opportunity than might be expected of forming opinions of the native character. Even in England, few know much of the people beyond their own class, and what they do know, they learn from newspapers and publications of a description which does not exist in India. In that country also, religion and manners put bars to our intimacy with the natives, and limit the number of transactions as well as the free com- munication of opinions. We know nothing of the inte- rior of families but by report, and have no share in those numerous occurrences of life in which the amiable parts of character are most exhibited. " ^^ Missionaries of * Elphinstone' s " History of India," ed. Covrell, p. 213. 78 LECTURE II. a different religion,^ judges, polioe-magistrates, officers of revenue or customs, and even diplomatists, do not see the most virtuous portion of a nation, nor any portion, unless when influenced by passion, or occupied by some personal interest. What we do see we judge by our ow^n standard. We conclude that a man who cries like a child on slight occasions must always be incapable of acting or suffering with dignity ; and that one who allows himself to be called a liar would not be ashamed of any baseness. Our writers also confound the distinc- tions of time and place ; they combine in one character the Maratta and the Bengalese, and tax the present generation with the crimes of the heroes of the Maha- bharata. It might be argued, in opposition to many un- favorable testimonies, that those who have known the Indians longest have always the best opinion of them ; but this is rather a compliment to human nature than to them, since it is true of every other people. It is more in point, that all persons who have retired from India think better of the people they have left, after compar- ing them with others, even of the most justly- admired nations." But what is still more extraordinary than the ready acceptance of judgments unfavorable to the character of the Hindus, is the determined way in which public opin- ion, swayed by the statements of certain unfavorable critics, has persistently ignored the evidence which members of the Civil Service, officers and statesmen — men of the highest authority — have given again and again, in direct opposition to these unfavorable opinions. * This statement may well be doubted. The missionary staff In India is very large and has been for years past. There is no reason to donbt that many of its .members are well informed respecting Hindoo character in all grades of society. — Am. Pubs. TRUTHFUL CHAKACTER OF THE HrNDUS. 79 Here, too, I must ask to be allowed to quote at least a few of these witnesses on the other side. "Warren Hastings tlms speaks of the Hindus in general : ^' Thej are gentle and benevolent, more susceptible of gratitude for kindness shown them, and less prompted to vengeance for wTongs inflicted than any people on the face of the earth ; faithful, affectionate, submissive to legal authority." Bishop Heber said : '' The Hindus are brave, court- eous, intelligent, most eager for knowledge and improve- ment ; sober, industi'ious, dutiful to parents, affection- ate to their children, uniform!}^ gentle and patient, and more easily affected by kindness and attention to their wants and feelings than any people 1 ever met with."* Elphinstone states : '' 'No set of people among the Hindus are so depraved as the dregs of our own great towns. The villagers are every v/here amiable, affec- tionate to their famiilies, kind to their neighbors, and toward all but the government honest and sincere. In- cluding the Thugs and Dacoits, the mass of crime is less in India than in England. The Thugs are almost a separate nation, and the Dacoits are desperate ruffians in gangs. The Hindus are mild and gentle people, more merciful to prisoners than any other Asiatics. Their freedom from gross debauchery is the point in which they appear to most advantage ; and their superiority in purity of manners is not flattering to our self-esteem, "f Yet Elphinstone can be most severe on the real faults of the people of India. He states that, at present, want of veracity is one of their prominent vices, but lie adds X '' that such deceit is most common in people connected * Samuel Johnson, " India," p. 293. f See " History of India," pp. 375-381. t L. c, p. 215. 80 LECTUKE II. witli government, a class which spreads far in India, as, from the nature of the land-revenne, the lowest villager is often obliged to resist force bj fraud."* Sir John Malcolm writes : f ^' I have hardly ever known where a person did understand the language, or where a calm communication was made to a native of India, through a well-informed and trustworthy me- dium, that the result did not prove, that what had at first been stated as falsehood had either proceeded from fear or from misapprehension. I by no means wish to state that our Indian subjects are more free from this vice than other nations that occupy a nearly equal posi- tion in society, but I am positive that they are not more addicted to untruth." Sir Thomas Munro bears even stronger testimony. He writes : :j: *^ If a good system of agriculture, unrival- led manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to either convenience or luxury, schools established in every village for teaching reading, writ- ing, and arithmetic,§ the general practice of hospitality and charity among each other, and, above all, a treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect, and deli- * " History of India," p. 218. f Mill's " History of India," ed. Wilson, vol. i., p. 370. t L. c, p. 371. § Sir Thomas Munro estimated the children educated at public schools in the Madras presidency as less than one in three. But low as it was, it was, as he justly remarked, a higher rate than existed till very lately in most countries of Europe. — Elphinstone, " Hist, of India," p. 205. In Bengal there existed no less than 80,000 native schools, though, doubtless, for the most part, of a poor quality. According to a Government Keport of 1835, there was a village-school for every 400 persons. — ** Missionary Intelligencer," IX. 183-193. Ludlow (" British India," I. 62) writes : " In every Hindu village which has retained its old form I am assured that the children gen- TEUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE HIITDUS. 81 cacj, are among the signs which denote a civilized peo- ple — then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe — and if civilization is to become an article of trade between England and India, I am convinced that England will gain by the import cargo. ' ' Mj own experience with regard to the native charac- ter has been, of course, very limited. Those Hindus whom I have had the pleasure to know personally in Europe may be looked upon as exceptional, as the best specimens, it may be, that India could produce. Also, my intercourse with them has naturally been such that it could hardly have brought out the darker sides of human nature. During the last twenty years, however, I have had some excellent opportunities of watching a number of native scholars under circumstances where it is not difficult to detect a man's trae character — I mean in lit- erary work and, more particularly, in literary contro- versy. I have watched them carrying on such controver- sies both among themselves and with certain European scholars, and I feel bound to say that, with hardly one exception, they have displayed a far greater respect for truth and a far more manly and generous spirit than we are accustomed to even in Europe and America. They have shown strength, but no rudeness ; nay, I know that nothing has surprised them so much as the coarse invec- tive to which certain Sanskrit scholars have conde- scended, rudeness of speech being, according to tlieir view of human nature, a safe sign not only of bad breed- ing, but of want of knowledge. When they were wrong, they have readily admitted their mistakes ; when they were right, they have never sneered at their Euro- erally are able to read, write, and cipher ; but wheve we have swept away the village-system, as in Bengal, there the village-school has also disappeared." 82 LECTUKE II. pean adversaries. There has been, with few exceptions, no quibbling, no special pleading, no nntrnthfnlness on their part, and certainly none of that low cunning of the scholar who writes down and publishes what he knows perfectly well to be false, and snaps his fingers at those who still value truth and self-respect more highly than victory or applause at any price. Here, too, we might possibly gain by the import cargo. Let me add that I have been repeatedly told by Eng- lish merchants that commercial honor stands higher in India than in any other country, and that a dishonored bill is hardly known there. I have left to the last the witnesses who might other- wise have been suspected — I mean the Hindus them- selves. The whole of their literature from one end to the other is pervaded by expressions of love and rever- ence for truth. Their very word for truth is full of meaning. It is s a t or s a t y a, s a t being the participle of the verb as^ to be. True, therefore, was with them simply that which is. The English sooth is connected with sat, also the Greek bv for ecrov, and the Latin sens, in prcBsens. We are all very apt to consider truth to be what is trowed by others, or believed in by large majorities. That kind of truth is easy to accept. But whoever has once stood alone, surrounded by noisy assertions, and overwhelmed by the clamor of those who ought to know better, or perhaps who did know better — call him Galileo or Darwin, Colenso or Stanley, or any other name — ho knows what a real delight it is to feel in his heart of hearts, this is true — this is — this is s a t — what- ever daily, weekly, or quarterly papers, whatever bish- ops, archbishops, or popes, may say to the contrary. Another name for truth is the Sanskrit r i t a, which TRUTHFUL' CHARACTER OF THE HIKDUS. 83 originally seems to have meant straight^ direct^ while a n ^ z t a is untrue, false. Now one of the highest praises bestowed upon the gods in the Yeda is that they are satya, true, truthful, trustworthy ; '^ and it is well known that both in modern and ancient times, men always ascribe to God or to their gods those qualities which they value most in them- selves. Other words applied to the gods as truthful beings are, adrogha, lit. not deceiving. f Adrogha-va/j means, he whose word is never broken. Thus Indra, the Yedic Jupiter, is said to have been praised by the fathers :j: '' as reaching the enemy, overcoming him, standing on the summit, true of sj^eech, most powerful in thought." Droghava^,§ on the contrary, is used for deceitful men. Thus Yasish^^Aa, one of the great Yedic poets, says : '' If I had worshipped false gods, or if I believed in the gods vainly — but why art thou angry with us, O 6^atavedas ? May liars go to destruction !" S a t y a m, as a neuter, is often used as an abstract, and is then rightly translated by truth. But it also means that which is, the true, the real ; and there are several passages in the Kig-\^eda where, instead of truth, I think we ought simply to translate satyam by the true, that is, the real, to ovrojg ov.l It sounds, no doubt, very well to translate Satyena uttabhita bhiimiA by " the earth is founded on truth ;" and I be- lieve every translator has taken satya in that sense * Rig-Yeda I. 87, 4 ; 145, 5 ; 174, 1 ; V. 23, L>. f Eig-Veda III. 32, 9 ; VI. 5, 1. X Eig-Veda VI. 22, 2. § lUg-Veda III. 14, 6. I This is the favorite expression of Plato for the Divine, which Gary, Davis, and others render " Eeal Being." — A. W. 84 LECTURE If. here. Ludwig translates, " Yon der Wahrlieit ist die Erde gestiitzt." But such an idea, if it conveys any tan- gible meaning at all, is far too abstract for those early poets and philosophers. They meant to say '' the earth, such as we see it, is held up, that is, rests on something real, though we may not see it, on something which they called the Real,"^ and to which, in course of time, they gave many more names, such as Hit a, the right. Brahman," etc. Of course where there is that strong reverence for truth, there must also be the sense of guilt arising from untruth. And thus we hear one poet pray that the waters may wash him clean, and carry off all his sins and all untruth : '^ Carry away, ye waters, f whatever evil there is in me, wherever I may have deceived, or may have cursed, and also all untruth (anr^tam)." J Or again, in the Atharva-Yeda lY. 16 : '' May all thy fatal snares, which stand spread out seven by seven and threefold, catch the man who tells a lie, may they pass by him who tells the truth !" From the Brahma^ias, or theological treatises of the Brahmans, I shall quote a few passages only : '^ Whosoever § speaks the truth, makes the fire on his * Sometimes they trace even this Satya or Rito,, the Keal or Right, to a still higher cause, and say (Eig-Veda X. 190, 1) : " The Eight and Eeal was born from the Lighted Heat ; from thence was born Night, and thence the billowy sea. From the sea was born Sa?n,vatsara, the year, he who ordereth day and night, the Lord of all that moves (winks). The Maker (dhatri) shaped Sun and Moon in order ; he shaped the sky, the earth, the welkin, and the highest heaven." f Eig-Veda L 23, 22. ij: Or it may mean, " Wherever I may have deceived, or sworn false." § (Satapatha Br^hmana IL 2,3, 19. TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE HINDUS. 8o own altar blaze np, as if he poured butter into the lighted lire. His own light grows larger, and from to- morrow to to-morrow he becomes better. But who- soever speaks untruth, he quenches the fire on his altar, as if he poured water into the lighted fire ; his own light grows smaller and smaller, and from to-morrow to to- morrow he becomes more wicked. Let man therefore speak truth only." ^ And again : f ' ' A man becomes impure b j uttering falsehood. ' ' And again ::[:'' As a man who steps on the edge of a sword placed over a pit cries out, I shall slip, 1 shall slip into the pit, so let a man guard himself from falsehood (or sin)." In later times we see the respect for truth carried to such an extreme, that even a promise, unwittingly made, is considered to be binding. In the Kaz^Aa-Upanishad, for instance, a father is in- troduced offering what is called an _AZZ-sacrifice, where everything is supposed to be given up. His son, who is standing by, taunts his father with not having altogether fulfilled his vow, because he has not sacrificed his sou. Upon this, the father, though angry and against his will, is obliged to sacrifice his son. Again, when the son arrives in the lower world, he is allowed by the Judge of the Dead to ask for three favors. He then asks to be restored to life, to be taught some sacrificial mysteries, and, as the third boon, he asks to know what becomes of man after he is dead. Yama, the lord of the Departed, tries in vain to be let off from answering this last ques- tion. But he, too, is bound by his promise, and then * Cf. Muir, "Metrical Translations," p. 268. f S&t. Br. III. 1, 2, 10. t Taitt. Arajiyaka X. 9. 86 LECTURE II. follows a discourse on life after death, or immortal life, which forms one of the most beautiful chapters in the ancient literature of India. The whole plot of one of the great epic poems, the RamayaTia, rests on a rash promise given by Da^aratha, king of Ajodhja, to his second wife, Kaikeyi, that he would grant her two boons. In order to secure the suc- cession to her own son, she asks that Rama, the eldest son by the king's other wife, should be banished for fourteen years. Much as the king repents his promise, Rama, his eldest son, would on no account let his father break his word, and he leaves his kingdom to wander in the forest with his wife Sita and his brother Lakshma^ia. After the father's death, the son of the second wife de- clines the throne, and comes to Rama to persuade him to accept the kingdom of his father. But all in vain. Rama will keep his exile for fourteen years, and never disown his father's promise. Here follows a curious dialogue between a Brahman (xabali and Prince Rama, of which I shall give some extracts : * '' The Brahman, who is a priest and courtier, says, ' Well, descendant of Raghu, do not thou, so noble in sentiments, and austere in character, entertain, like a common man, this useless thought. What man is a kinsman of any other ? What relationship has any one with another ? A man is born alone and dies alone. Hence he who is attached to any one as his father or his mother, is to be regarded as if he were insane, for no one belongs to another. Thou oughtest not to aban- don thy father's kingdom and stay here in a sad and miserable abode, attended with many trials. Let thy- self be inaugurated king in the wealthy Ayodhya. * Muir, "Metrical Translations," p. 218. TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE HINDUS. 87 Da^aratlia, thy father is nothing to thee, or thou to liini ; the king is one, and thou another, do therefore what is said. . . Then offer oblations to the departed spirits (of thy forefathers) on prescribed days ; but see what a waste of food ! For what can a dead man eat ? If what is eaten by one here enters into the body of another (viz., of the departed), let A^i'addhas be offered to those who are travelling ; they need not then get food to eat on their journey. These books (the Yedas), (which enjoin men to) sacrifice, give, consecrate themselves, practise austerities, and forsake the world, are composed by clever men to induce others to bestow gifts. Au- thoritative words do not fall from heaven. Let me, and others like yourselves, embrace whatever assertion is supported by reason. Adhere to what is apparent to the senses, and reject what is invisible. . . . TJiis world is the next world j do thou therefore enjoy pleasure, for every virtuous man does not gain it. Yirtuous men are greatly distressed, while the unrighteous are seen to be happy.' " > These positivist sentiments sound strange, particularly from the mouth of a Brahman. But the poet evidently wishes to represent a Brahman living at court, who has an argument ready for anything and everything that is likely to please his king. But what does Rama answer? "The words," he says, '^ which you have addressed to me, though they recommend what seems to be right and salutary, advise, in fact, the contrary. The sinful transgressor, who lives according to the rules of heretical systems, obtains no esteem from good men. It is good conduct that marks a man to be noble or ignoble, heroic or a pretender to manliness, pure or impure. Truth and mercy are im- memorial characteristics of a king's conduct. Hence 88 LECTURE II. royal rule is in its essence truth. On truth the word is based. / Both sages and gods hav^e esteemed truth. 'The man who speaks truth in this world attains the highest imperishable state. Men shrink with fear and horror from a liar as from a serpent. In this world the chief element in virtue is truth ; it is called the basis of everything. \ Truth is lord in the world ; virtue always rests on truth. All things are founded on truth ; noth- ing is higher than it. Why, then, should I not be true to my promise, and faithfully observe the truthful in- junction given by my father ? Neither through covet- ousness, nor delusion, nor ignorance, will I, overpowered by darkness, break through the barrier of truth, but remain true to my promise to my father. How shall 1, having promised to liim that 1 would thus reside in the forests, transgress his injunction, and do what Bharata recommends ?" The other epic poem too, the Mahabharata, is full of episodes showing a profound regard for truth and an al- most slavish submission to a pledge once given. The death of Bhishma, one of the most important events in the story of the Mahabharata, is due to his vow never to hurt a woman. He is thus killed by /Sikhandin, whom he takes to be a woman.* Were I to quote from all the law-books, and from still later works, everywhere you would hear the same key- note of truthfulness vibrating through them all. We must not, however, suppress the fact that, under certain circumstances, a lie was allowed, or, at all events, excused by Indian lawgivers. Thus Gautama says : f '' An untruth spoken by people under the influence of * Holtzmann, " Das alte indische Epos," p. 21, note 83. f V. 24. TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OK THE HINDUS. 80 anger, excessive joy, fear, pain, or grief, by infants, by very old men, by persons laboring under a delusion, being under the influence of drink, or by madmen, does not cause the speaker to fall, or, as we should say, is a venial, not a mortal sin." * This is a large admission, yet even in that open admis- sion there is a certain amount of honesty. Again and again in the Mahabharata is this excuse pleaded, f Nay, there is in the Mahabharata if the well-known story of Kau^ika, called Satyavadin, the Truth-speaker, who goes to hell for having spoken the truth. He once saw men flying into the forest before robbers (dasyu). The robbers came up soon after them, and asked Kau^ika, which way the fugitives had taken. He told them the ti*uth, and the men were caught by the robbers and * This permissioa to prevaricate was still further extended. The following five untruths are enumerated by various writers as not constituting mortal sins — namely, at the time of marriage, during dalliance, when life is in danger, when the loss of property is threatened, and for the sake of a Brahmawa. Again, another writer cites the declaration that an untruth is venial if it is spoken at the time of marriage, during dalliance, in jest, or while suflFering great pain. It is evident that Venus laughed at lovers' oaths in India as well as elsewhere ; and that false testimony ex- tracted by torture was excused. Manu declared that in some cases the giver of false evidence from a pious motive would not lose his seat in heaven ; indeed, that whenever the death of a man of any of the four castes would be occasioned by true evidence, falsehood was even better than truth. He gives as the primeval rule, to say what is true and what is pleasant, but not what is true and unpleasant, or what is pleasant and not true. The Vish?iu-purana gives like counsel, adding the following aphorism : '* A considerate man will always cultivate, in act, thought, and speech, that which is good for living beings, both in this world and in the next." About the same license appears to be used in this country and winked at. — A. W. f I. 3412 ; in. 13844 ; VII. 8742 ; VIII. 3436, 3464. i Mahabharata VHI. 3448. 90 LECTURE II. killed. But KauAa, we are told, went to hell for having spoken the truth. The Hindus may seem to have been a priest-ridden race, and their devotion to sacrifice and ceremonial is well known. Yet this is what the poet of the Maha- bharata dares to say : " Let a thousand sacrifices (of a horse) and truth be weighed in the balance — truth will exceed the thousand sacrifices."* These are words addressed by xSakuntala, the deserted wife, to King Dushyanta, when he declined to recog- nize her and his son. And when he refuses to listen to her appeal, what does she appeal to as the highest au- thority ? — The voice of conscience. '^ If you think I am alone," she says to the king, '' you do not know that wise man within your heart. He knows of your evil deed — ^in his sight you commit sin. A man who has committed sin may think that no one knows it. The gods know it and the old man within." f This must suffice. 1 say once more that I do not wish to represent the people of India as two hundred and fifty-three millions of angels, but I do wish it to be understood and to be accepted as a fact, that the damag- ing charge of untruthfulness brought against that people is utterly unfounded with regard to ancient times. It is not only not true, but the very opposite of the truth. As to modern times, and I date them from about 1000 after Christ, I can only say that, after reading the ac- counts of the terrors and horrors of Mohammedan rule, my wonder is that so much of native virtue and truth- * Muir, 1. c. p. 268 ; Mahabharata I. 3095. f Mahabharata I, 3015-16, TRUTHFUL CHAKACTER OF THE HIN'DUS. 91 fulness should have survived. You might as well ex- pect a mouse to s]3eak the truth before a cat, as a Hindu before a Mohammedan judge. '^ If you frighten a child, that child will tell a lie ; if you terrorize millions, you must not be surprised if they try to escape from your fangs. Truthfulness is a luxury, perhaps the greatest, and let me assure you, the most expensive luxury in our life — and happy the man who has been able to enjoy it from his very childhood. It may be easy enough in our days and in a free country, like England, never to tell a lie — but the older we grow, the harder we find it to be always true, to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The Hindus too had made that discovery. They too knew how hard, nay how impossible it is, always to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. There is a short story in the /Satapatha Brahmawa, to my mind full of dee]3 meaning, and pervaded by the real sense of truth, the real sense of the difficulty of truth. His kins- man said to Aru7^a Aupave^i, " Thou art advanced in years, establish thou the sacrificial fires." He replied : " Thereby you tell me henceforth to keep silence. For he who has established the fires must not speak an un- truth, and only by not speaking at all, one speaks no untruth. To that extent the service of the sacrificial fires consists in truth." f I doubt whether in any other of the ancient literatures of the world you will find traces of that extreme sensi- tiveness of conscience which despairs of our ever speak- ing the truth, and which declares silence gold, and * This explains satisfactorily Jiow the Hindoos became liars, and of course admits that they did become so. — Am. Pubs, f (Satapatha Brahmana, translated by Eggeling, ** Sacred Books of the East," vol. xii., p. 313, § 20. 92 LECTURE II. speeclr silver, tlioiigh in a much higher sense than onr j3roverb. What I should wish to impress on those who will soon find themselves the rulers of millions of human beings in India, is the duty to shake off national prejudices, which are apt to degenerate into a kind of madness. I have known people with a brown skin whom I could look up to as my betters. Look for them in India, and you will find them, and if you meet with disappointments, as no doubt you will, think of the people with white skins whom you have trusted, and whom you can trust no more. "We are all apt to be Pharisees in international judgments. I read only a few days ago in a pamphlet written by an enlightened politician, the following words : '^ Experience only can teach that nothing is so truly astonishing to a morally depraved people as the phenom- enon of a race of men in whose word perfect confi- dence may be placed '^. . . , The natives are conscious of their inferiority in nothing so much as in this. They require to be taught rectitude of conduct much more than literature and science." If you a]3proacli the Hindus with such feelings, you will teach them neither rectitude, nor science, nor liter- ature. Na}^, they might appeal to their own literature, even to their law-books, to teach us at least one lesson of truthfulness, truthfulness to om'selves, or, in other words, humility. What does ya^;'zavalkya say ? f '' It is not our hermitage," he says — our rehgion we might say — '^ still less the color of our skin, that pro- duces virtue ; virtue must be practiced. Therefore let * Sir Charles Trevelyan, " Christianity and Hinduism," p. 81, t IV. 65, TBtrTHFtJL CHARACTER OF THE HINDUS. 93 no one do to others what he would not have done to himself." And the laws of the Manavas, which were so much abused by Mill, what do they teach ? * " Evil-doers think indeed that no one sees them ; but the gods see them, and the old man within." '^ Self is the witness of Self, Self is the refuge of Self. Do not despise thy own Self, the highest witness of men." f ^' If, friend, thou thinkest thou art self -alone, re- member there is the silent thinker (the Highest Self) always within thy heart, and he sees what is good and what is evil. " :j: '^ O friend, whatever good thou may est have done from thy very birth, all will go to the dogs, if thou speak an untruth." Or in Yasishz^Aa, XXX. 1 : ^' Practice righteousness, not unrighteousness ; speak truth, not untruth ; look far, not near ; look up toward the highest, not toward anything low." 'No doubt there is moral depravity in India, and where is there no moral depravity in this world ? But to appeal to international statistics w^ould be, I believe, a dangerous game. 'Nor must w^e forget that our stand- ards of morality differ, and, on some points, differ con- siderably from those recognized in India ; and we must not wonder if sons do not at once condemn as criminal what their fathers and grandfathers considered right. Let us hold by all means to our sense of what is right and what is wrong ; but in judging others, whether in public or in private life, w^hether as historians or politi- cians, let us not forget that a kindly spirit will never do * VIII. 85. t Vm. 90. t VIII. 92. 94 LECTURE II. any harm. Certainly I can imagine nothing more mis- chievous, more dangerous, more fatal to the permanence of English rule in India, than for the young civil ser- vants to go to that country with the idea that it is a sink of moral depravity, an ants' nest of lies ; for no one is so sure to go wrong, whether in public or in private life, as he who says in his haste : '' All men are liars." LECTUEE III. HUMAN IIS^TEREST OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE. My first lecture was intended to remove the prejudice that India is and always must be a strange country to us, and that those who have to live there will find them- selves stranded, and far away from that living stream of thoughts and interests which carries us along in England and in other countries of Europe. My second lecture was directed against another prej- udice, namely, that the people of India with whom the young civil servants will have to pass the best years of their life are a race so depraved morally, and more par- ticularly so devoid of any regard for truth, that they must always remain strangers to us, and that any real fellowship or friendship with them is quite out of the question. To-day I shall have to grapple with a third prejudice, namely, that the literature of India, and more especially the classical Sanskrit literature, whatever may be its in- terest to the scholar and the antiquarian, has little to teach us which we cannot learn better from other sources, and that at all events it is of little practical use to young civilians. If only they learn to express them- selves in Hindustani or Tamil, that is considered quite enough ; nay, as they have to deal with men and with the ordinary affairs of life, and as, before everything else, they are to be men of the world and men of busi- ness, it is even supposed to be dangerous, if they allowed 96 LECTURE III. tliemselves to become absorbed in questions of abstruse scholarship or in researches on ancient rehgion, mythol- ogy, and philosophy. I take the very opposite opinion, and I should advise every young man who wishes to enjoy his life in India, and to spend his years there with profit to himself and to others, to learn Sanskrit, and to learn it well. I know it will be said. What can be the use of San- skrit at the present day ? Is not Sanskrit a dead lan- guage ? And are not the Hindus themselves ashamed of their ancient literature ? Do they not learn English, and do they not prefer Locke, and Hume, and Mill to their ancient poets and philosophers ? No doubt Sanskrit, in one sense, is a dead language. It was, I believe, a dead language more than two thou- sand years ago. Buddha, about 500 e.g., commanded his disciples to preach in the dialects of the people ; and King A,9oka, in the third century e.g., when he put up his Edicts, which were intended to be read, or at least to be understood by the people, had them engraved on rocks and pillars in the various local dialects from Cabul * in the north to Ballabhi in the south, from the sources of the Granges and the Jumnah to Allahabad and Patna, nay even down to Orissa. These various dialects are as different from Sanskrit as Italian is from Latin, and we have therefore good reason to suppose that, in the third century e.g., if not earlier, Sanskrit had ceased to be the spoken language of the people at large. There is an interesting passage in the Alillavagga, where we are told that, even during Buddha's lifetime, some of his pupils, who were Brahmans by birth, com- * See Cunningham, " Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum," vol. i., 1877. HUMAK INTEREST OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE. 97 plained that people spoiled tlie words of Buddha by every one repeating them in his own dialect (nirutti). They proposed to translate his words into Sanskrit ; but he dechned, and connnanded that each man should learn his doctrine in his own language.^ And there is another passage, quoted by Hardy in his Manual of Buddhism, p. 186, where we read that at the time of Buddha's first preaching each of the countless listeners thought that the sage was looking toward him, and was speaking to him in his own tongue, though the language used w^as Magadhi.f Sanskrit, therefore, as a language spoken by the people at large, had ceased to exist in the third century B.C. Yet such is the marvellous continuity between the X3ast and tlie present in India, that in spite of repeated social convulsions, religious reforms, and foreign invasions, Sanskrit may be said to be still the only language that is spoken over the whole extent of that vast country. Though the Buddhist sovereigns published their edicts in the vernaculars, public inscriptions and private official documents continued to be composed in Sanskrit during the last two thousand years. And though the language of the sacred writings of Buddhists and 6^ainas was borrowed from the vulgar dialects, the literature of India never ceased to be written in Pamnean Sanskrit, while the few exceptions, as, for instance, the use of Prakrit by women and inferior characters in the plays of Kalidasa and others, are themselves not without an important historical significance. * -KuUavagga V. 33, 1. The expression used is ^/iandaso arope- ma'ti. f See Bhys Davids, Buddhist Suttas, " Sacred Books of the East," Yol. xi., p. 142, 98 LECTURE III. Even at the present moment, after a century of Eng- lish rule and English teaching, I believe that Sanskrit is more widely understood in India than Latin was in Europe at the time of Dante. Whenever I receive a letter from a learned man. in India, it is written in Sanskrit. Whenever there is a controversy on questions of law and religion, the pam- phlets published in India are written in Sanskrit. There are journals written in Sanskrit which must entirely depend for their support on readers who prefer that classical language to the vulgar dialects. There is The Pandit^ published at Benares, containing not only edi- tions of ancient texts, but treatises on modern subjects, reviews of books published in England, and con troy ersial articles, all in Sanskrit. Another paper of the same kind is the Pratna-iKam- ra-ncmdinij '^ the Delight of lovers of old things," pub- lished likewise at Benares, and full of valuable materials. There is also the Yidyodaya^ ' ^ the Kise of Knowl- edge," a Sanskrit journal published at Calcutta, which sometimes contains important articles. There are prob- ably others, which I do not know. There is a monthly serial published at Bombay, by M. Moreshwar Kunte, called the Shad-darshana-Chin- tanihd^ or '^ Studies in Indian Philosophy," giving the text of the ancient systems of philosophy, with commen- taries and treatises, written in Sanskrit, though in this case accompanied by a Marathi and an English transla- tion. Of the Rig-Yeda, the most ancient of Sanskrit books, two editions are now coming out in monthly numbers, the one published at Bombay, by what may be called the liberal party, the other at Prayaga (Allahabad) by Daya- nanda Sarasvati, the representative of Indian orthodoxy. HUMAN IlfTEKEST OF SAi^SKRTT LITERATURE. 99 The former gives a paraphrase in Sanskrit, and a Marathi and an English translation ; the latter a fuljl ex- planation in Sanskrit, followed bj a vernacular con?Vnen- tary. These books are published by subscription, and the list of subscribers among the natives of India is very considerable. There are other journals, which are cliieily written in the spoken dialects, such as Bengali, Marathi, or Hindi ; Imt they contain occasional articles in Sanskrit;., as, for instance, the Hari^^andra^andrika, pubHshed at Benares, the Tattvabodhini^ published at Calcutta, and several more. It was only the other day that I saw in the Liberal^ the journal of Keshub Chunder Sen's yjarty,* an account of a meeting between Brahmavrata Samadhyayi, a Yedic scholar of l^uddea, and Kashinath Trinibak Telang, a M.A. of the University of Bombay. The one came from the east, the other from the w^est, yet both could converse fluently in Sanskrit, f Still more extraordinary is the number of Sanskrit texts, issuing from native presses, for which there seems to be a large demand, for if we write for copies to be sent to England, we often find that, after a year or two, all the copies have been bought up in India itself. That would not be the case with Anglo-Saxon texts in England, or with Latin texts in Italy ! But more than this, we are told that the ancient epic poems of the Mahabharata and Kamaya^a are still recited in the temples for the benefit of visitors, and that in the villages large crowds assemble around the Kathaka, the reader of these ancient Sanskrit poems, * The Brahmo-Samaj, a theistic school.— A. W. f The Lxh^ral March 12, 1882. \ IGO LECTURE III. often interrupting his recitations witk tear§ and sighSj when the hero of the poem is sent into banishment, while/ Fhen he returns to his kingdom,, the houses of the village are adorned with lamps and garlands. Such a recitation of the whole of the IViahabharata is said to occupy ninety days, or sometimes half a year.^ The people at large require, no doubt, that the Brahman narrator (Kathaka) should interpret the old poem, but there must be some few people present who understand, or imagine they understand, the old poetry of Yyasa and Yalmiki. There are thousands of Brahmans f even now, when so little inducement exists for Yedic studies, who know the whole of the Big- Yeda by heart and can repeat it ; and what applies to the Big-Yeda applies to many other books. 1 But e^en if Sanskrit were m.ore of a dead language than it really is, all the living languages of India, both Aryan and Dravidian, draw their very life and soul from Sanskrit.:}: On this point, and on the great help that even a limited knowledge of Sanskrit would render in * See R. G. Bhandarkar, Consideration of the date of the Maha- bharata, Journal of the R. A. 8. of Boinbay, 1872 ; Talboys Wheeler, " History of India," ii. 365, 572 ; Holtzmann, " Tiber das alte in- dische Epos," 1881, p. 1 ; Phear, " The Aryan Village in India and Ceylon," p. 19. That the Mahabharata was publicly read in the seventh century a.d., we learn from Bana ; see Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Bombay, yoI. x., p. 87, note. — A. W. f " Hibbert Lectures," p. 157. \ " Every person acquainted with the spoken speech of India knows perfectly well that its elevation to the dignity and usefulness of written speech has depended, and must still depend, upon its borrowing largely from its parent or kindred source ; that no man who is ignorant of Arabic or Sanskrit can write Hindustani or Bengali with elegance, or purity, or precision, and that the con- demnation of the classical languages to oblivion would consign the HUMAK IKTEREST OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE. 101 the acquisition of the vernaculars, I, and others better qualified than 1 am, have spoken so often, though with- out any practical effect, that I need not speak /again. Any candidate who knows but the elements of Sanskrit grammar will v/ell understand what I mean, whether his special vernacular may be Bengali, Hindustani, or even Tamil. To a classical scholar I can only say that between a civil servant who knows Sanskrit and Hin- dustani, and another who knows Hindustani only, there is about the same difference in their power of forming an intelligent appreciation of India and its in- habitants, as there is between a traveller who visits Italy with a knowledge of Latin, and a party personally con- ducted to Rome by Messrs. Cook & Co. Let us examine, however, the objection that Sanskrit literature is a dead or an artificial literature, a little more carefully, in order to see whether there is not some kind of truth in it. 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 Kterature 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. Let us look at the facts. Sanskrit literature is a wide and a vague term. If the Yedas, such as we now have them, were composed about 1500 e.g., and if it is a fact that considerable works continue to be written in San- dialects to utter helplessness and iri'etrievable barbarism." — H, H^ Wilson, Asiatic Journal, Jan., 1836 ; vol xix., p. 15. 103 LECTURE III. skrit even now, we have before us a stream of literarj activity extending over three thousand four hundred jears^^f , With the exception of China there is nothing like this in the whole world. It is difficult to give an idea of the enormous extent and variety of that literature. We are only gradually becoming acquainted with the untold treasures which still exist in manuscripts, and with the titles of that still larger number of works which nmst have existed formerly, some of them being still quoted by writers of the last three or four centuries- "^ 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 t^ 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. f This is more, I believe, than the whole classical literature of Greece and Italy put together. Much of it, no doubt, will be called mere rubbish ; but then you know that even in our days the writings of a very eminent philosopher have been called '^ mere rubbish." What I wish you to see is this, that there runs through the whole history of India, through its three or four thousand years, a liigh road, or, it is perhaps more accurate to say, a high mountain-path of literature. It may be remote from the turmoil of the plain, hardly visible perhaps to the millions of human * It woTild be a most useful work for any young scholar to draw up a list of Sanskrit books which are quoted by later waiters, but have not yet been met with in Indian libraries. f " Hibbert Lectures/' p. 133. HUMAJq" INTEREST OF SAiq'SKRIT LITERATURE. 103 beings in their daily struggle of life. It may have been trodden by a few solitary wanderers only. But to the historian of the human race, to the student of the ^de- velopment of the human mind, those few sohtary wan- derers are after all the true representatives of India from age to age. Do not let us be deceived. The true his- tory of the world must always be the history of the few ; and as we measure the Himalaya by the height of Mount Everest, we must take the true measure of India from the poets of the Yeda, the sages of the Upanishads, the founders of the Yedanta and Sankhya philosophies, and the authors of the oldest law-books, and not from the millions who are born and die in their villages, and who have never for one moment been roused out of their drowsy dream of life. To large multitudes in India, no doubt, Sanskrit lit- erature was not merely a dead literature, it was simply non-existent ; but the same might be said of almost every literature, and more particularly of the literatures of the ancient world. Still, even beyond this, I am quite prepared to ac- knowledge to a certain extent the truth of the statement, that a great portion of Sanskrit literature has never been living and national, in the same sense in which the Greek and Roman literatures reflected at times the life of a whole nation ; and it is quite true besides, that the San- skrit books which are best known to the public at large, belong to what might correctly be called the Renaissance period of Indian literature, when those who wrote San- slvrit had themselves to learn the language, as we learn Latin, and were conscious that they were writing for a learned and cultivated public only, and not for the people at large. This will require a fuller explanation. 104 LECTURE III. We may divide tlie whole of Sanskrit literature, beginning with the Rig-Yeda and ending with Daya- nanda's Introduction to his edition of the E-ig-Yeda, his by no means uninteresting Kig-Yeda-bhumika, into two great periods : that preceding the great Turanian inva- sion, and that following it. The former comprises the Yedic literature and the ancient Hterature of Buddhism, the latter all the rest. If I call the invasion which is generally called the in- vasion of the xSakas, or the Scythians, or Indo-Scythians, or Turushkas, the Turanian * invasion^ it is simply be- cause I do not as yet wish to commit myself more than I can help as to the nationality of the tribes who took pos- session of India, or, at least, of the government of India, from about the first century e.g. to the third century A.D. They are best known by the name of Y^ueh-chi, this being the name by which they are called in Chinese chronicles. These Chinese chronicles form the principal source from which ^re derive our knowledge of these tribes, both before and after their invasion of India. Many theories have been started as to their relationship with other races. They are described as of pink and white complexion and as shooting from horseback ; and as there was some similarity between their Chinese name Yueh-chi and the Gothi or Goths, they were identified by Remusat f with those German tribes, and by others with the Getae, the neighbors of the Goths. Tod went even a step farther, and traced the (xats in India and the * This vague term, Turanian, so much used in the Parsi Scriptures, is used here in the sense of unclassified ethnically. — A. W. f " Eecherches sur les langues Tartares," 1820, vol. i., p, 327 ; f' Lassen," 1. A., vol. ii., p. 359, HUMAK IKTEKEST OE SAN^SKRIT tITERATURE. 105 Rajputs back to the Yxieh-chi and Getce.'^ Some light maj come in time out of all this darkness, but for the present we must be satisfied with the fact that, between the first century before and the third century after our era, the greatest political revolution took place in India owing to the repeated inroads of Turanian, or, to use a still less objectionable term, of Northern tribes. Their presence in India, recorded by Chinese historians, is fully confirmed by coins, by inscriptions, and by the tra- ditional history of the country, such as it is ; but to my mind nothing attests the presence of these foreign in- vaders more clearly than the break, or, I could almost say, the blank in the Brahmanical literature of India, from the first century before to the third century after our era.f If we consider the political and social state of that country, we can easily understand what would happen in a case of invasion and conquest by a warlike race. The invaders would take possession of the strongholds or cas- tles, and either remove the old Eajahs, or make them * Lassen, who at first rejected the identification of G'ats and Yueh- chi, was afterward inclined to accept it. f The Yueh-chi appear to have begun their invasion about 130 b.c. At this period the Grecian kingdom of Bactria, after a brilliant exist- ence of a century, had fallen before the Tochari, a Scythian people. The new invaders, called 'E