Wilson Philological Lectures on Sanskrit and the Derived Languages c6.4

c6.4

But we may be told that an Indian does not care for knowledge for its own sake, and it is only as a means of worldly advancement that he enters the University at all, and, as soon as he takes his degree, flings away his books, and no more troubles himself with the several branches of knowledge to which he was introduced while within the walls of his college. The reproach is true, as well as untrue. It is true if it is meant that since the first school or college was opened by our Government we have had very few or none among us who have devoted themselves to the pursuit of knowledge. But if what it is intended to assert is that a love of knowledge or learning and an unselfish devotion to it are foreign to the nature of a Hindu, it is altogether untrue. Those ponderous tomes which adorn the library of the Sanskrit student and those innumerable *pustakas* in the Sarasvatî Bhâṇḍâras scattered throughout the country tell a different tale. But in this, as in other matters, the circumstances in which our virtues have grown up and are exercised are not the circumstances in which we are expected to display them, and fail to do so. Love of learning is ingrained in the very nature of the Hindu, but the legitimate object of this feeling is Sanskrit literature. A knowledge of English and of English literature and philosophy is, in the first instance, sought for only for its practical benefits. A Hindu would not send his son to an English School if he could help it. A very powerful motive for the pursuit of learning, the respect of the society in which one lives, is also wanting in the case of the so-called educated Indian. A Shâstrî or Pandit is esteemed and treated with respect and consideration by his countrymen; the English-knowing Indian may be feared if he holds some Government appointment, but if none, he enjoys no consideration. The very word *vidvân* or ‘learned’ is grudged him by the orthodox Hindu. In one branch of learning, however, *viz.* Sanskrit, an English-knowing Indian may meet with appreciation and esteem at the hands of the learned in Europe. That is a subject in which he may successfully compete with his European brother, and in which he has peculiar advantages which the latter does not possess. Among his own countrymen he will find sympathy only if he has studied Sanskrit exactly in the old way, but even in this case his heterodoxy, which is the result of his English education, would stand in the way. But there are indications that a more sympathising and appreciating body of men is growing about us, and the circle will go on widening as education advances. In this, as in other matters, there are hopes that our countrymen will, in the course of time, chiefly through the agency of Government education, adapt themselves to their altered circumstances; and the Hindu’s inherent love of learning will gradually extend and engraft itself on the branches of knowledge to which he has been newly introduced by the European.