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Max Muller is greatly admired for his translation of Sanskrit works. Wh=
en
Duke of Argyll was appointed Secretary of State for India in December 186=
8,
Max Muller wrote to him: "India has been conquered once, but India must =
be
conquered again and that second conquest should be a conquest by
education." He added: "The ancient religion is doomed and if Christiani=
ty
does not step in, whose fault will it be ?" This conquest was achieved=20
partially by Macaulay when he introduced English education.
Missionaries such as like Max Muller had racist motives, that is to insu=
lt
and denigrate Hinduism and other non-white cultures. Such were the
calumnies uttered against Hinduism. That the Western Indologists wer=
e=20
interested in denigrading Indian history, culture and civilization
needs no further evidence. Their motive was to promote Christianity=20
in India.=20
In a letter to his wife Max Muller wrote: "I hope 1 shall finish that
work and 1 feel convinced, though 1 shall not live to see it, yet, this
edition of mine and the translation of the Veda, will hereafter tell =
to
a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of sou=
ls
in that country. It is the root of their religion and to show them wha=
t=20
the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that sprung
from it during the last 3000 years."=20
Since the Biblical age did not extend beyond 4000 BC how can a vanquishe=
d=20
people like Indians could claim to possess a hoary past? Archbishop of
Ireland decreed in 1664 that creation took place at 9 a.m. on 23-10-4004
BC and one who will say anything else about it will be considered a
heretic. "From this notion of theirs, they further smugly believed that
Indians had no sense of history and so their claim to a hoary
antiquity for their history was untenable. Of late this attitude of the
Westerners is changing perceptibly. But the damage has been done."
Successive Indian scholars have continued this spirit of belittling
ancient Indian achievements planted by Western Indologists.
Max Muller in 1870, in the Anthropological Review, London, classified the
human race into seven catagories on an ascending scale - with the
Aborigines on the lowest rung and the "Aryan" type supreme.=20
Most of the so called authorities, were not historians or archaeologists
but had missionary and political axe to grind. Max Muller in fact had be=
en
paid by the East India Company to further its colonial aims, and others
like Lassen and Weber were ardent German nationalists, with hardly any
authority or knowledge on India, only motivated by the superiority of
German race/nationalism through white Aryan race theory. And as everybody
knows this eventually ended up in the most calamitous event of 20th
century: the World War II.
Max Muller, like many of the Christian scholars of his era, believed in
Biblical chronology. This placed the beginning of the world at 400 BC and
the flood around 2500 BC. Assuming to those two dates, it became difficul=
t
to get the Aryans in India before 1500 BC.
=95First, it served to divide India into a northern Aryan and southern
Dravidian culture which were made hostile to each other. This kept the
Hindus divided and is still a source of social tension.
=95Second, it gave the British an excuse in their conquest of India. They
could claim to be doing only what the Aryan ancestors of the Hindus had
previously done millennia ago.
=95Third, it served to make Vedic culture later than and possibly derived
from Middle Eastern cultures. With the proximity and relationship of the
latter with the Bible and Christianity, this kept the Hindu religion as a
sidelight to the development of religion and civilization to the West.
=95Fourth, it allowed the sciences of India to be given a Greek basis, as=
any
Vedic basis was largely disqualified by the primitive nature of the Vedic
culture.
It is unfortunate that this this approach has not been questioned more,
particularly by Hindus. Even though Indian Vedic scholars like Dayananda
saraswati, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Arobindo rejected it, most Hindus toda=
y
passively accept it. They allow Western, generally Christian, scholars to
interpret their history for them and quite naturally Hinduism is kept in =
a
reduced role. Many Hindus still accept, read or even honor the translatio=
ns
of the 'Vedas' done by such Christian missionary scholars as Max Muller,
Griffith, Monier- Williams and H. H. Wilson.=20
Would modern Christians accept an interpretation of the Bible or Biblical
history done by Hindus aimed at converting them to Hinduism?
(Obtained from sources on the Net)
Om Shanti!
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