Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c3.16

c3.16

must have been able to read in order to govern, reminds us of Macaulay’s criticism on Dr. Johnson’s saying that “the Athenians were barbarians. The mass of every people must be barbarous where there is no printing.” “Yes,” says Macaulay, “an Athenian citizen might possess very few volumes, and the largest library to which he had access might be much less valuable than Johnson’s bookcase at Bolt Court. But the Athenian might pass every morning in conversation with Socrates,” etc., etc. Like Wordsworth’s pedlar, Eastern prophets and kings had small need of books. It should be borne in mind too that the East in those days there were no printed books. The only reading he had was from MSS. which were often in *Shikast* handwriting, and wanting in vowels and diacritical marks. Reading, therefore, was almost, if not quite, as difficult an attainment as that of writing, and unless ’Alāu-d-dīn and Akbar could read shorthand, which is really what Persian transcript amounts to, a knowledge of the alphabet and of the meaning of words would be of small help. The art of manuscript-reading is one of slow acquirement, and so we find that though Elphinstone could speak Persian, and admired Omar Khāyyām and other Persian poets, he could not read Persian MSS. and had to rely on his munshī or on a translation.