India: What can it teach us? A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge

India: what can it teach us? A course of lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge

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What Can it Teach Us? With them, first of all, religion was not only one interest by the side of many. It was the all-absorbing interest; it embraced not only worship and prayer, but what we call philosophy, morality, law, and government, —all was pervaded by religion. Their whole life was to them a religion—everything else was, as it were, a mere concession made to the ephemeral requirements of this life. Speak to him of finite things, and he will tell you that the Finite is impossible and meaningless without the Infinite.

Speak to him of death, and he will call it birth ; speak to him of time, and he will call it the mere shadow of eternity. To us the senses seem to be the organs, the tools, the most powerful engines of knowledge ; to him they are, if not actually deceivers, at all events heavy fetters, checking the flight of the spirit.

To us this earth, this life, all that we see, and hear, and touch is certain.

Hindu Gods and Heroes: Studies in the History of the Religion of India. Hinduism and Buddhism - Volume I. An Historical Sketch Complete. The Religions of Japan: The Indigenous Religion Of Japan. The Religions Of India. Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol 1.

The Tree of Wisdom. Gods of Love and Ecstasy. Myth, Ritual, and Religion Annotated. Have You Lived Before? Reincarnation and the Afterlife. Strange Tales of an Oriental Idol. The ancient religion of Japan. Occult Science in India. Yoga or the Art of Transformation. Studies in Indian History and Culture. Karmic Relationships Vol 3. Shinran and His Work. God-Idea of the Ancients.

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A History of Sanskrit Literature. The Srimad Devi Bhagavatam.

A History of Sanskrit Literature Illustrated. Hindu Gods and Heroes. The Gospel of Ramakrishna.

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The Age of Kali. Whenever we can trace back a religion to its first beginnings, we find it free from many blemishes that affected it in its later states". He used his links with the Brahmo Samaj to encourage such a reformation on the lines pioneered by Ram Mohan Roy. In the Lutheran tradition, he hoped that the "superstition" and idolatry, which he considered to be characteristic of modern popular Hinduism, would disappear.

The translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India, and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3, years.

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India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again, and that second conquest should be a conquest by education. Much has been done for education of late, but if the funds were tripled and quadrupled, that would hardly be enough By encouraging a study of their own ancient literature, as part of their education, a national feeling of pride and self-respect will be reawakened among those who influence the large masses of the people. A new national literature may spring up, impregnated with Western ideas, yet retaining its native spirit and character A new national literature will bring with it a new national life, and new moral vigour.

Max Müller

As to religion, that will take care of itself. The missionaries have done far more than they themselves seem to be aware of, nay, much of the work which is theirs they would probably disclaim. The Christianity of our nineteenth century will hardly be the Christianity of India. But the ancient religion of India is doomed—and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be? In his "What can India teach us? If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that nature can bestow—in some parts a very paradise on earth—I should point to India.

If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most full developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant—I should point to India.

India Quotes by F. Max Müller

And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life—again I should point to India.

He also conjectured that the introduction of Islam in India in the 11th century had a deep effect on the psyche and behaviour of Hindus in another lecture, "Truthful Character of the Hindus":. The other epic poem too, the Mahabharata , is full of episodes showing a profound regard for truth.

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. I 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 damaging 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 after Christ AD , I can only say that, after reading the accounts of the terrors and horrors of Mohammedan rule, my wonder is that so much of native virtue and truthfulness should have survived.

India: What can it teach us? A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge

You might as well expect a mouse to speak the truth before a cat, as a Hindu before a Mohammedan judge. The visit was really a revelation to me. That little white house, its setting in a beautiful garden, the silver-haired sage, with a face calm and benign, and forehead smooth as a child's in spite of seventy winters, and every line in that face speaking of a deep-seated mine of spirituality somewhere behind; that noble wife, the helpmate of his life through his long and arduous task of exciting interest, overriding opposition and contempt, and at last creating a respect for the thoughts of the sages of ancient India—the trees, the flowers, the calmness, and the clear sky—all these sent me back in imagination to the glorious days of ancient India, the days of our brahmarshis and rajarshis, the days of the great vanaprasthas, the days of Arundhatis and Vasishthas.

It was neither the philologist nor the scholar that I saw, but a soul that is every day realizing its oneness with the universe.

In , at a meeting of the Established Presbytery of Glasgow , Mr. The blasphemous lectures were, he continued, "the proclamation of atheism under the guise of pantheism" and "uprooted our idea of God, for it repudiated the idea of a personal God". He was wary of Darwin's work on human evolution, and attacked his view of the development of human faculties. His work was taken up by cultural commentators such as his friend John Ruskin , who saw it as a productive response to the crisis of the age compare Matthew Arnold 's " Dover Beach ".

He analysed mythologies as rationalisations of natural phenomena, primitive beginnings that we might denominate " protoscience " within a cultural evolution. In , he sent a copy of his lectures to Darwin reassuring him that, though he differed from some of Darwin's conclusions, he was one of his "diligent readers and sincere admirers". He was "deeply saddened by the fact that these classifications later came to be expressed in racist terms", as this was far from his intention. In addition, they were "nomadic languages," in contrast to the other two families Aryan and Semitic , which he called State or political languages.

The idea of a Turanian family of languages was not accepted by everyone at the time. The idea was absorbed later into nationalist ideologies in Hungary and Turkey. Soon after, when he was commanded to dine at Windsor , he wrote to Prince Leopold to ask if he might wear his Order, and the wire came back, "Not may , but must. The award is given to acknowledge excellent and outstanding achievements in the field of science and art. He married Georgina Adelaide Grenfell on 3 August Georgina died had his papers and correspondence bound; they are at the Bodleian Library , Oxford.

He was interred at Holywell Cemetery on 1 November After his death a memorial fund was opened at Oxford for "the promotion of learning and research in all matters relating to the history and archaeology, the languages, literatures, and religions of ancient India". Stone and Nirad C.

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