The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c7.4

c7.4

The literature of Malabar has the same foundation, and consists of the same materials, as that of all the Hindoo nations. The whole of their original works are composed in Sanscrite, a language of great antiquity, but which is no longer spoken, though its history is intimately connected with several of the present languages of Europe, with those of Greece and Rome, and with the whole of the numerous family of cognate Gothic tongues. Sancrite holds the same place in India, that Latin and Greek do in Europe; but as it would require an amazing period of time, and many political changes in society before a language could fall into disuse and be unemployed in speech, this circumstance without any further proof, would carry us, back to the first ages. It is natural to suppose that the sciences would first prosper where men were not exposed to excessive labour in order to procure the necessaries of life; plenty and tranquility would leave them at liberty to cultivate knowledge, to apply their minds to books, and learning. Unfortunately the Hindoos, like the ancients, seem to have considered that almost exclusively as science, which is more grounded on precepts and ideal pictures, than on facts and demonstration. They taught the duties of life, and explained the faculties of the mind; but, the favourite study of the Indian sages, was a metaphysical and abstruse philosophy, founded on superstition and error. They regarded logic, rhetoric and grammar with particular approbation; and those who aspired to a superior reputation, acquired those sciences with unceasing labour, and intense application. They spent their lives in their cultivation. The Hindoos made no use of experiments, and it is extraordinary that without this aid, they should have become acquainted with the most difficult and hidden branches of Mathematics, Astronomy and Algebra. Have the acquisitions been the fruits of their own study and reflection; or have they been obtained from extraneous and a more ancient source which is now forgotten and lost? It is not possible to determine these questions; and as we cannot prove that they derived their knowledge from another people, it is but fair to consider them as the inventors of all which they possess, which they have preserved through so many perils and which they must have cultivated with so much ardour.