Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Vada in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c11.s8: The Vilification and Its Aftermath

Vāda in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c11.s8

Language
English

The Vilification and Its Aftermath

c11.s8.1

In 1835 Sylvain Lévi wrote:

c11.s8.2

These peoples are inheritors of a long tradition of history, of art, and of religion, the sense of which they have not entirely lost and which they are probably anxious to prolong. We have assumed the responsibility of intervening in their development, sometimes without consulting them, sometimes in answer to their request. . . . We claim, rightly or wrongly, to represent a superior civilization, and because of the right given to us by the virtue of this superiority, which we regularly affirm with such assurance as makes it seem incontestable to the natives, we have called in question all their traditions.⁶⁵

c11.s8.3

The whole scenario in India had changed after the departure of Warren Hastings. William Jones was even subjected to an overt and abject criticism by James Mill. For Mill, Kālidāsa's magnum opus was “a story which was above the powers of imagination in an uncultivated language”. Sir William Jones was regretfully rejected:

c11.s8.4

It was unfortunate that a mind so pure, so warm in pursuits of truth, and so devoted to oriental learning, as that of Sir William Jones, should have adopted a hypothesis of a high state of civilization in the principal countries of Asia.⁶⁶

c11.s8.5

*The History of British India* by Mill is in fact an example of a *vitaṇḍā* text, ridden with futile rejoinders or *jātis*, an attempt at deconstructing all that the constructive Orientalism had created. In fact, it was the most eloquent expression of the magisterial and utilitarian view of the British rulers leading to a denouncement of Hindu ways of life. It served as a guideline to the British policy makers for ruling India. Mill contemptuously dismissed all the claims of India's achievements in the fields of science and culture. In the subsequent editions of this book, H.H. Wilson made attempts at correcting his wild and sweeping generalizations and over-reactions. Mill was extremely ruthless in demolishing whatever glory invested by Jones and the Orientalists to Sanskrit literary traditions.

c11.s8.6

Mill's work also provided a footing to Macaulay, who in his famous minute on education summarily dismissed the value of Sanskrit literature in his most decrying terms:

c11.s8.7

I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation of the orientalists themselves. I have never found one amongst them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.⁶⁷

c11.s8.8

However, his condemnations of Indian culture and Sanskrit literature generated another kind of debate. Lord Bentinck appointed William Adam for investigating the state of education in Bengal. Adam in his reports voiced the concerns of traditional *paṇḍits*; he also collected the signatures of several *paṇḍits* from Calcutta Sanskrit College, as a confirmation of the *vyavasthā* (opinion) on the continuance of the employment of Sanskrit for translating Western knowledge texts in it.⁶⁸

c11.s8.9

Lancelot Wilkinson was carrying on his experiments at the *pāṭhaśālā* in the small town of Sehore near Bhopal in central India. He utilized astronomical texts like *Sūryasiddhānta* with their scientific perspective.⁶⁹ Paṇḍit Bapudev was his protégé. John Muir was appointed Superintendent of Banaras Sanskrit College. A Christian polemicist, he had already authored a tract in Sanskrit *Mataparīkṣā* denouncing principal tenets of Hinduism. Before that, he had also announced a prize of Rs. 50 for the best essay in Sankrit verse on the design and power of God, which should not refer to Hinduism. He advocated Sanskrit medium and authored several other texts also in Sanskrit.⁷⁰ Ballantyne also published Sanskrit translation of the three chapters of *Genesis*, titled *The Bible for Pundits* along with the original, to invoke the paṇḍits to testify and search their validity through their scriptures.⁷¹ Ballantyne's *Christianity Contrasted with Hindu Philosophy* led to a series of debates. Devout Christians could not tolerate his comparison of Vedāntic *Nirguṇa Brahman* with the God of Christianity. He was accused of presenting "too favourable" a characterization of Vedānta. His detractors understood *nirguṇa* as devoid of not only physical attributes, but of intellectual and moral characteristics as well. Byllantyne had to approach the *paṇḍits* for substantiation of his view of *nirguṇa*. The *vyavasthā* (opinion) given by the *paṇḍits*, including the savants like Vitthal Shastri and Bapudev Shastri, was published along with the signatures of sixteen others by Byllantyne in his *Bible for Pundits*.⁷²

c11.s8.10

Rajendralal Mitra became an icon in the whole intellectual and political movement that was struggling hard to establish an Indian identity and challenging the Euro-centric interpretations of Indian culture. Mitra criticized the Weber's view that *Rāmāyaṇa* was composed under the influence of Homer's *Iliad* and wrote sarcastically:

c11.s8.11

Alexander during his three week's stay in Punjab taught the Indians according to different authors, the art of preparing male dresses, the mode of piling bricks and stones for buildings, the principles of architecture, the plan of harnessing horses, writing, drama, astronomy, philosophy and all and everything that convert a race of naked savages into civilized men, and it would be preposterous to suppose that he would not leave behind him a copy of the old Homer for the edification of the Indians.
— Rajendralal Mitra 1872: 53.⁷³

c11.s8.12

With his firm protest of the idea of ancient India's indebtedness to Greece in respect of learning the constructions by stone, Mitra was embroiled in a controversy with James Fergusson, even though he acknowledged that Fergusson was the "highest authority on Indian architecture".⁷⁴

Linked texts (5)