A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c6.18

c6.18

There is another circumstance which has retarded the progress of Sanskrit philology: an affectation of that learned pedantry which has done so much mischief to Greek and Latin scholarship. We have much to learn, no doubt, from classical scholars, and nothing can be a better preparation for a Sanskrit student than to have passed through the school of a Bentley or a Hermann. But in Greek and Latin scholarship the distinction between useful and useless knowledge has almost disappeared, and the real objects of the study of these ancient languages have been well nigh forgotten. More than half of the publications of classical scholars have tended only to impede our access to the master-works of the ancients; and a sanction has been given to a kind of learning, which, however creditable to the individual, is of no benefit to the public at large. A similar spirit has infected Sanskrit philology. Sanskrit texts have been edited, on which no rational man ought to waste his time. Essays have been written on subjects on which it is folly to be wise. These remarks are not intended to disparage critical scholarship or to depreciate the results which have been obtained by minute and abstruse erudition. But scholars who devote all their time to critical niceties and recondite subtleties are apt to forget that these are but accessories. Knowledge which has no object beyond itself is, in most cases, but a pretext for vanity. It is so easy, even for the most superficial, to build up a theory on the most important and most obscure points of the earliest and most difficult literature, and to call this procedure critical investigation. This procedure has not been observed in the investigation of the mythology and traditions of the Hindus. Impatience to generalise has availed itself greedily of whatever promised to afford materials for generalisation; and the most erroneous views have been confidently advocated, because the guides to which their authors trusted were ignorant or insufficient.