Why we have to be an Indian? In the words of
Friedrich Max Muller
Ever wondered
why I have to be an Indian? For many in India, it is a stupid question as they
live in India and so they think they are Indians. Take an example – You
happened to be caught at a crime scene and police are interrogating you. You
prove you’re not guilty by verbalizing all that you can say about your
innocence. Should the police take you into custody just because you are at the
location of crime scene? Sounds disturbing isn’t it? If you think, being at the
crime scene should not prove us to be a criminal, in the same way being in
India doesn’t qualify one to be an Indian. Every Indian has to prove their
character again and again that is in consensus with the “time-less” National
Character. Else, the future generations with Artificial Intelligence will not
believe that there was an Indian and there was a country like India. Is India
that great? You ask an Indian and he may brush his memories and bring to
consciousness the tall tales of mighty kings from Ramayana and Mahabharata. For
Europeans, these tales maybe anecdotal and hence they may not be convinced by
the logic. Hence, there should be a way out that should convince a Greek or an
European to learn more about India. As a matter of fact there is no need for us
to convince the West about the greatness of India. It is us to rub our eyes and
look into the real nature of India sine times immemorial. India has produced
Saints and Scholars of greatest reputation but all have been stereotyped by the
Western World as Soft and Biased. Somehow, the genes of Aryans spread across
the Globe. I feel the pain to share the fact that volumes of knowledge that are
documented by our Vedic Seers are lost due to foreign apathy towards nullifying
our Hindu Ancient Truths. Yet, India, time and again proved that its 4000 year
old charisma is reflected in Aryans who are born in different places of the
world and worked for the cause of reviving the vivid Heritage and Culture of
Sanatana Dharma. In this context, I bring to you one of the great personalities
from Germany who I believe is an Aryan in his earlier life and worked towards
upholding the spirit of Sanatana Dharma.
Friedrick Max Muller, was born at
Dessau on the 6th December 1823. He was the only son of a
distinguished poet Wilhelm Muller. At school Muller, decided to devote himself
to the classical languages. He entered the University of Leipzig in 1841, began
to learn Sanskrit, and published a translation of the Hitopadesa in 1844. For
the knowledge of the readers, Hitopadesa is believed to be a 12th
Century Indian Sanskrit text consisting of fables that have profound moral
values relating to worldly affairs. Having deep interest in philology and
philosophy, Max Muller, under the influence of Eugene Burnouf collected
materials relating to Rig-veda. He went to England in 1846, and the Board of
Directors of the East India Company commissioned him to bring out at their
expense a complete edition of the Rig-Veda with Sayana’s commentary. This
proves the point that Britishers before establishing their base in India wants
to know the depth of Indian culture from the sacred Vedic texts. In 1859, Max
Muller published his History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, a work containing
much valuable and important research in literary chronology based on knowledge
of many works then available only in manuscript. FM Muller completed the herculean task of
translating Rig-Veda in 1873. He is also credited with translating Kalidasa’s
Meghadoota. Though a busy scholar and voluminous writer, Max Muller was ‘quite
a man of the world’. He was conferred Degrees, titles, and honours from all the
European countries. He died at Oxford on October 28, 1900. Basing on his brief
history I could collect, I believe that the greatness of a person lies in the
greater tasks that the person has contemplated in his life to achieve.
Some
interesting truths that FM Muller has shared are highlighted, in his lectures
given to Indian Civil Service Officers of Colonial Britan at the University of
Cambridge, before they were commissioned on administrative assignments in
India.
The title of
this article is justified from the message given by FM MulleriIn his book
titled – “What can India Teach Us? P.no 5, he records that, “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 fully 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. And if I were to ask myself from what
literature we, here in Europe, we 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.
FM Muller,
while addressing the Indian Civil Service Officers, mentioned what tasks they
can take up in India.
He says –
· “If you have acquired
any special tastes here in England, you will find plenty to satisfy them in
India; and whoever has learnt to take an interest in any of the great problems
that occupy the best thinkers and workers at home need certainly not be afraid
of India proving to him an intellectual exile.
·
If you care for
geology, there is work for you from the Himalayas to Ceylon.
· If you are a
zoologist, think of Haecket, who is just now rushing through Indian forests and
dredging in Indian seas, and to whom his stay in India is like the realization
of the brightest dream of his life.
·
If you are interested
in ethnology, why, India is like a living ethnological museum.
·
If you are fond of
archaeology, if you have ever assisted at the opening of a barrow in England,
and know the delight of finding a fibula, or knife, or a flint in a heap of
rubbish, read only ‘General Cunningham’s Annual Reports of the Archaeological
Survey of India,’ and you will be impatient for the time when you can take your
spade and bring to light the ancient Viharas or Colleges built by the Buddhist
monarchs of India.
·
If ever you amused
with coins, Persian, Carian, Thracian, Parthian, Greek, Macedonian, Seythian,
Roman, and Mohammedan, you can discover heritage coins. For example – When
Warren Hastings was Governer-General, an earthen pot was found on the bank of a
river in the province of Benaras, containing 172 gold coins from ancient Persia
(Darics). However, due to many reasons, all those gold coins disappeared when
Warren Hastings returned to England. It rests with you to prevent the revival
of such Vandalism.
· If you are interested
to study religion, where can you study its true origin, its natural growth, and
its inevitable decay better than in India, the home of Brahmanism, the
birthplace of Buddhism, and the refuge of Zoroastrianism, even now the mother
of new superstitions – and why not, in the future, the regenerated child of the
purest faith, if only purified from the dust of nineteen centuries?
·
You will find
yourselves everywhere in India between an immense past and an immense future,
take any of the burning questions such as higher education, parliamentary
representation, codification of laws, finance, emigration, poor-law, and
whether you have anything to teach and to try, or anything to observe and to
learn, India will supply you with a laboratory such as exits nowhere else.
·
That very Sanskrit,
the study of which may at first seem so tedious to you and so useless, if only
you carry on will open before you large layers of literature, as yet almost
unknown and unexplored, and allow you an insight into strata of thought deeper
than any you have known before, and rich in lessons that appeal to the deepest
sympathies of the human heart.
Muller
recalls that the best of western intelligentsia have devoted their study on the
outward material world such as the growth of the earth, the first appearance of
living cells and its steady progress from the lowest to the highest stages.
Muller firmly believes that there is an inward and intellectual world also
which has to be studied in its historical development. And in that study of the
history of human mind, in that study of our true selves, India occupies a place
second to no other country. Muller adds by saying that whatever sphere of the
human mind you may select for the special study, whether it be language, or
religion, or mythology, or philosophy, whether it be laws or customs, primitive
art or primitive science, everywhere, you have to go to India, whether you like
it or not, because some of the most valuable and most instructive materials in
the history of man are treasured up in India, and in India only.
This
address by Max Muller to the Indian Civil Service Officers is only a sample of lasting
impressions that Muller has towards India. When a German can study the length,
breadth and depth of India, it is our prime responsibility as Indians to live
to the characteristic of Indianism. As Friedrich Max Muller rightly analysed
about India as the history of histories and still the mystery of all mysteries
to be discovered. Muller believes and suggests all Indian Civil Service
Officers that if only if they want to know the real nature of India, the best
way is to learn the language of Sanskrit. He opines that Sanskrit literature if
studied only in a right spirit, is full of human interests, full of lessons
which according to him even Greek could never teach a subject worthy. The words
of Muller are not exaggeration of India. However, in the present situation, there
is a need to know our history by knowing which we can learn the very life of
history of all countries. The young need to turn to books, to flip the pages
back and buy enough patience to learn not with an academic attitude but to
generate highest levels of patriotism and enthusiasm in re-designing the
education system, the policies, the practices that suit the Indian psyche and
bring it closure to its supreme characteristics of Sanatana Dharma.
Note:
I give full credit and take apologies from the publisher of India – What it can
teach us? for taking paragraphs (p. no 4-10) and placing the same in this
article. I have done this with an intention to place before the readers the
originality and nothing but original verbatim otherwise, the true spirit of
knowing about India maybe compromised. The reason for me to publish some parts
of original text is to inculcate the true patriotism in the younger generation.
There is no commercial interest as such and I hope some of the students who get
inspired by this article take up task that promote harmony and peace to this
Great land of Vedic Culture.
Reference:
India – What can it
teach us? by Friedrich Max Muller
published by Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd (2002)
