Chapter 4
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It has been seen that all the scholarly researches of Max Muller had a practical side, or in any case practical implications For instance, in editing the Rig-Veda he always kept in mind the effect its publication might have on the religious life of contemporary Hindus He had the same end in view when, after completing his edition of the book, he took up the editorship of a gigantic corpus of the scriptures of the East under the general title of The Sacred Books of the East In addition, he kept himself in touch with all the important religious and social movements in India even when they were not directly connected with his scholarly work, and tried to promote those which he considered progressive In thus involving himself m the sphere of action from a distance he certainly produced results which were more tangible than those which Plato could bring about either at Athens or Syracuse
But the deepest and most enduring practical effect of his scholarly effort was produced by that part of it which for him was the most theoretical His work on Comparative Philology had its political effect, and gave a specific direction and character to modern Indian nationalism
The contribution made by the European Orientalists to Indian nationalism is now recognized by all The Hindus had created their own brand of nationalism, a basic chauvinism so to speak, long before the coming of European influences to their country For example, the great Muslim scholar, Alberum, who made a special effort to know them and their religion, recorded at the beginning of the eleventh century that ‘The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited ’ This megalomania became far more intense and unshakable under Muslim rule, and remained a living passion under British rule But it had no historical basis, and could not be accepted in its traditional form by the Indians who were receivmg a Western education They wanted a nationalism which would be tenable historically The Orientalists of Europe supplied the
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historical basis by revealing to modern Indians their past history and achievements Max Muller fully supported all legitimate use of history by them As he put it ‘A people that can feel no pride in the past, in its history and literature, loses the mamstay of its national character ’ But the question was whether the pride was being felt rationally At first, by and large, that was the case
Comparative Philology entered mto the new Hindu nationalism less obviously, but its conclusions were an essential ingredient in its composition But it has to be pointed out that new science of Comparative Philology created in the nineteenth century had its political effects in Europe as well Hitlerism was its late and monstrous abortion, and anti-Semitism a deformed and vicious child Withal, it created other political movements which were not looked upon as illegitimate These were pan-Germanism, panSlavism, pan-Islamism and pan-Turamsm This was pointed out by Sir Henry Marne in his Rede Lecture, delivered before the University of Cambridge in 1875
Sanscntic study has been the source of certain indirect effects, not indeed having much pretension to scientific character, but of prodigious practical importance There is no question of its having produced very serious political consequences, and this is a remarkable illustration of the fact that no great addition can be made to the stock of human thought without profoundly disturbing the whole mass and moving it m the most unexpected directions For the new Theory of Language has unquestionably produced a new theory of Race
That people not necessarily understanding one another’s tongue should be grouped together politically on the ground of linguistic affinities assumed to prove community of descent, is quite a new idea Nevertheless, we owe to it, at all events in part, the vast development of German nationality, and we certainly owe to it the pretensions of the Russian Empire to at least a presidency over all Slavonic communities The theory is perhaps stretched to the point at which it is nearest breaking when men, and particularly Frenchmen, speak of the Latin race
That Comparative Philology should make an impact on the Indian mind was natural, because that impact was nothing more than a recoil to an impact of India on the European mind As Sir Henry Maine said ‘India has given the world Comparative Philology and Comparative Mythology ’ It is easy to see that in saying so he had the work of Max Muller in mind In the inaugural lecture which
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Max Muller delivered on being appointed to the new chair of Comparative Philology, he brought out the connexion even more forcefully I have already quoted the passage from that lecture in which he said that ‘a Comparative Philologist without a knowledge of Sanskrit was like an astronomer without a knowledge of mathematics’ In the same lecture he elaborated the actual historical connexion between the two by saying ‘We may date the origin of Comparative Philology, as distinct from the Science of Language, from the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta in 1784 From that time dates the study of Sanskrit, and it was the study of Sanskrit which formed the foundation of Comparative Philology ’ The connexion between modern Hindu nationalism and Comparative Philology was implicit in this purely scholarly affiliation, but it owed its full development very largely to the manner in which Max Muller presented it to his readers For him this branch of philology was not solely an inquiry into the origin and nature of language, but also a means of exploring the mind of the earliest civilized man, and even more especially the mind of the Aryan man He employed the phrase ‘Aryan Race’, frequently, and also idealized the ethnic group to which he gave this name. So, there is a likelihood of his being regarded as what in these days is called a ‘Racialist’ The two words ‘Aryan’ and ‘Race’ have become some sort of red rag to contemporary Radicals This makes it necessary to explain what Max Muller meant when he spoke of the Aryan Race There was no vagueness in his conception at all In 1872, speaking before the University of Strassburg, he said
These two sciences, the Science of Language and the Science of Man, cannot, at least for the present, be kept too much asunder, and many misunderstandings, many controversies, would have been avoided, if scholars had not attempted to draw conclusions from language to blood, or from blood to language When each of these sciences shall have carried out independently its own classification of men and of languages, then, and then only, will it be time to compare their results, but even then, I must repeat, what I have said many times before, it would be as wrong to speak of Aryan blood as of dolichocephalic grammar
Again, in his book Biographies of Words , published in 1888, he wrote
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How then shall we tell from language what races had to learn the language of their Aryan conquerors or their Aryan slaves ? There is no Aryan race in blood, but whoever, through the imposition of hands, whether of his parents or his foreign masters, has received the Aryan blessing, belongs to that unbroken spiritual succession which began with the first apostles of that noble speech, and continues to the present day in every part of the globe Aryan, in scientific language, is utterly inapplicable to race It means language and nothing but language, and if we speak of Aryan race at all, we should know that it means no more than Aryan speech
Lastly, addressing the Anthropological Section of the British Association at Cardiff in 1891, he gave a summary of his views on this question from as early as 1847, and declared that ‘the unholy alliance between Philology and Physiology’ had hitherto done nothing but mischief
Speaking of his first appearance at a scientific conference at Oxford in 1847, he said that at that time it was taken for granted that in future Comparative Philology would be the only safe foundation for Anthropology Linguistic Ethnology was a very favourite term used by Bunsen, Pritchard, Latham and others He protested against this view even then, and published his formal protest in 1853 To Bunsen he said that ‘there ought to be no compromise between ethnological and phonological science’
Curiously enough, he was often supposed to be the strongest advocate of a theory which he was attacking He made a frank confession, however, in the address of 1891 ‘Perhaps I was not entirely without blame, for, having once delivered my soul, I allowed myself occasionally the freedom to speak of the Aryan or Semitic race, meaning thereby no more than the people, whoever and whatever they were, who spoke Aryan or Semitic languages ’ He went on to say that as to the colour of the skin, the hair, the eyes of those unknown speakers of Aryan speech, the scholar says nothing ‘If we step once from the narrow domain of science into the vast wilderness of mere assertion, then it does not matter what we say We may say, with Plenka, that all Aryas are dolichocephalic, blue-eyed, and blond, or we may say, with Pietrement, that ail Aryas are brachycephalic, with brown eyes and black hair There is no difference between the two assertions They are both perfectly meaningless ’
Holding these views he found it paradoxical that he, a philologist,
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should be presiding over the Section of Anthropology, and justified that in two ways First of all, he thought that at some future time some connexion might be discovered between philological and anthropological facts But he emphasized strongly that anthropologists should know more about language, and ventured to hope that ‘the time will come when no anthropologist will venture to write on anything concerning the inner life of man without having himself acquired a knowledge of the languages in which that inner life finds its truest expression 5 So it will be seen that in respect of the relationship between language and ‘race 5 zoologically defined, Max Muller held very sound as well as sane views
Educated Indians of his time who were becoming familiar with these philological discoveries and being influenced by the new ideas, did not accept or apply them with his scientific spirit On the contrary, they showed every inclination to do so in a manner which could have been called racialist But even here it is very important to be precise as to the attitude, for the word ‘racialist 5 has become a mere pejorative expression without a correct denotation or cornnotation
What is now called ‘racialism 5 is not a zoological or purely genetic concept at all, but a psychological one It is nothing but an exaggerated consciousness of group identity based on a common language and a common culture, often accompanied by a sense of superiority to other human groups, and always by a desire to preserve the identity It should really be regarded as an extreme form of nationalism, and the quarrel between the racialists and anti-racialists is correctly seen as a conflict between nationalism and cosmopolitanism This form of nationalism is perpetuated by the mental inheritance of a community, but it also has a genetic aspect All communities with a well-defined sense of identity are overwhelmingly endogamous, and this endogamy furnishes a kind of genetic support to what is really an acquired character The loyalty to the psychological identity is always heightened and made aggressive towards other groups by any threat to it
/ The Hmdus certainly had a high degree of group consciousness, a sense of unbridgeable difference from all others, and this was accentuated by their habit of giving to all their social relationships and activities a genetic complexion and cast In ancient times what might be called Hindu nationalism retrospectively was based on their belief that they were ‘Aryas 5 , and as such not only different
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from other peoples and communities, but also superior Anyone who is at all familiar with Sanskrit literature cannot be unaware of this, cannot remain ignorant of what the notion of being Arya meant to the Hindu of ancient times
To begin with, however, the notion of Arya was applied aggressively to the older population of the country, to the non-Aryan internal proletariat But when other foreigners began from time to time to invade India and rule the original Aryan conquerors, the notion was extended to them From the Hindu point of view these foreigners in their original homes began to be regarded as an external proletariat, and were all indiscriminately lumped under the name, Mlechchhas or unclean foreigners Only the Hindu was regarded as Aryan, and as the historical memory was wholly lost, India was regarded as the only Aryan land This Aryan pride was also seen, though not in so intolerant a form, in Persia as well before the spread of Islam, and it has been resuscitated there in our time
This Aryan pride ran in the blood of all Hindus and, transformed into a dogmatic megalomania and xenophobia, it enabled them not only to survive under foreign rule, but also to despise their foreign rulers, whether Muslim or British None the less, it hung in the air, without any historical basis Comparative Philology supplied that basis, and brought into existence a more rational and also a more self-conscious Aryanism among the modern Hindus
This was the positive influence of the ideas derived from Comparative Philology on Indians They had also a defensive application by which the Hindus tried to maintain their national honoui against the very vocal British arrogance in India Whether it was asserted or assumed, they resented the British attitude, and fell deeply msulted by their treatment as inferiors " Comparative Philo logy came to their rescue by showing that not only in their lan guages, but even ethnically, they were related to Europeans This created an immense enthusiasm and confidence among the Hindus which was noticed by Sir Henry Maine when he was a Member o the Viceroy’s Council in India and Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University Delivering his Convocation address in 1864 in Calcutta he said
Probably, if we could search into the hearts of the more refiner
portions of the Native Community, we should find their highes
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aspiration was to be placed on a footing of real and genuine equality with their European fellow-citizens Some persons have told them that they are equals already, equal in fact as they undoubtedly are before the law Most of you have heard of one remarkable effort which was made to establish this position A gentleman, who was then a Member of the Government of India, Mr Lamg, went down to the Dalhousie Institute, and, in a lecture delivered there, endeavoured to popularize those wonderful discoveries in philological science which have gone far to lift the hypothesis of the common parentage of the most famous branches of the human family to the level of a scientific demonstration I do not know that anybody was ever more to be admired than Mr Lamg for that act of courage, for I know how obstinate were those prejudices which he sought to overthrow, and to what height they had risen at the moment when he spoke The effect produced by his lecture on the Aryan race must have been prodigious, for I am sure I scarcely see a single native book or newspaper which does not contain some allusion to Mr Lamg’s argument
Maine was, however, conscious that there lay a risk for the future m this enthusiasm He told the students of Calcutta University whom he was addressing that though Mr Lamg taught nothing but the truth, it was a barren truth Then he explained himself.
Depend upon it, very little is practically gamed by the Native when it is proved, beyond contradiction, that he is of the same race with the Englishman Depend upon it, the true equality of mankind lies, noi in the past, but in the future It may come — probably will come — but it has not come already
In the meantime [he continued] the equality which results from intellectual cultivation is always and at once possible Be sure that it is a real equality No man ever yet genuinely despised, however he might hate, his intellectual equal
Indians by themselves tried to reach that intellectual equality and also found that mstead of being despised by the Englishman he was being hated But at the same time they also went on advertising the equality from the presumed common descent In 1874, a Bengal writer had an article in the Indian Mirror , a very influential news paper edited by an eminent Bengali, in which he brought out th< difference that Sanskntic studies in Europe and Comparative Philology had made to the British attitude towards Indians He said that at the beginning of their rule the British regarded th people of India as little better than niggers, having a civilizatioi
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perhaps a shade better than that of the barbarian, but that the discovery of Sanskrit had entirely revolutionized the course of thought and speculation ‘We were niggers at one time We now become brethren 5 Then he continued
The advent of the English found us a nation low sunk in the mire oi superstition, ignorance, and political servitude The advent of scholar’ like Sir William Jones found us fully established in a rank above that oi every nation as that from which modern civilization could be dis tmctly traced It would be interesting to contemplate what would have been our position if the science of philology had not been discovered We should know that it is to the study of the roots and inflexions oi Sanskrit that we owe our national salvation Within a few year’ after the discovery of Sanskrit, a revolution took place in the history of comparative science Never were so many discoveries made at once and from the speculations of learned scholars like Max Muller, the dawmngs of many truths are even now visible to the world Com parative mythology and comparative religion are new terms altogethei m the world
There was more than a chance that this reawakening of self respect among the modem Hindus could lead them astray But the immediate result was something which Max Muller both wel corned and admired, because it showed a Ime of development whicl he himself was urging on Indians The human urge in all hit scholarly work was that, becoming aware of their great past anc drawmg on their legacy, they would revitalize their contemporar] life, and shed the dead wood which had accumulated through th< centuries He saw that the process was unfolding both in its destruc tive and constructive aspects
So, as President of the Aryan Section of the International Con gress of Orientalists held in London from September 14 to 21, 187^ he described the result of the impact made on Indians by the worl of European Orientalists and other scholars He summed up th< general drift in one significant sentence ‘Thus the religion, th< literature, the whole character of the people of India are becoming more and more Indo-European ’ He amplified the formula b 1 saying
A new race of men is growing up in India, who have stepped, as it were over a thousand years, and have entered at once on the mtellectua inheritance of Europe They carry off prizes at English schools, tak their degree in English Universities, and are in every respect ou
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equals With regard to what is of the greatest interest to us, their scholarship, it is true that the old school of Sanskrit scholars is dying out, and much will die with it which we shall never recover, but a new and most promising school of Sanskrit students, educated by European professors, is springing up, and they will, nay, to judge from recent controversies, they have already become most formidable rivals to our own scholars They work for us, as we work for them
But there was also another side to the movement which Max Muller could not see because he did not visit India Sir Henry Maine did see it, and it seemed so ominous to him that he thought it necessary to warn his young listeners against it in Calcutta in his Convocation address of 1866 In 1870 he said that he had had unusual opportunities of studying the mental condition of the educated class in one Indian province (Bengal), and had found that though this class was so strongly Europeanized as to be no fair sample of native society as a whole, its peculiar stock of ideas was probably the chief source from which certain influences were proceeding Then he added ‘Here there has been a complete revolution of thought, in literature, in taste, in morals, and in law ’
To the young members of this class he spoke about the strange dichotomy in their ideology He said that he had no complaint to make of the education which they were receiving, but that he could not help being disappointed at the use to which they were sometimes putting it Tt seems to me that not seldom they employ it for what I can best describe as irrationally reactionary purposes ’ He could see plainly that the educated Indians themselves did not conceal the fact that by their new education they had broken for ever with their past, and abandoned much of the customs and creeds Yet, he said, he was constantly reading and sometimes hearing elaborate attempts on their part to persuade themselves and others, that there was a sense in which these rejected portions of their history, usage and belief were perfectly in harmony with the modern knowledge which they had acquired, and with the modern civilization to which they aspired
There were some Indians, he went on to say, who seemed to have persuaded themselves that there was once a time in India wher learning was more honoured and respected, and when the career of £ learned man was more brilliant, than in British India and unde] British rule So that they believed or tried to believe that it waj better to be a Brahmin, or a scribe attached to the court of som<
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half-mythical Hindu king, than to follow one of the learned professions which the English had created
He observed that in point of fact there was no one in the hall in which he was speaking to whom the life of a hundred years ago would not be acute suffering supposmg it could be lived over again Then he declared emphatically
It is impossible even to imagine the condition of an educated Native, with some of the knowledge and many of the susceptibilities of the nineteenth century — indeed perhaps with too many of them — if he could recross the immense gulf which separates him from the India of Hindu poetry, if indeed it ever existed The only India, in fact, to which he could hope to return — and that retrogression is not beyond the range of conceivable possibilities — is the India of Mahratta robbery and Mohammedan rule European influences are, in a great measure, the source of these delusions
He also said that a similar mistake was being made by them when they called in ingenious analogies and subtle explanations to justify usages which they did not venture to defend directly, or of which m their hearts they disapproved He saw a tendency on the part of the educated classes to defend practices on the ground that they served some practical end or, more often, because something superficially like them could be found in Europe Then he said ‘There is no greater delusion than to suppose that you weaken an error by giving it a colour of truth On the contrary, you give it pertinacity and vitality, and greater power for evil 9
The warning was not heeded, the tendency grew, and by the end of the century a very plausible Hindu apologia was built up, largely on the strength of the very ideas and information supplied by men like Max Muller This can be seen in the record of a conversation that the French literary critic, Andre Chevrillon, had with a learned Bengali, the principal of the college at Jaipur Chevrillon found in him a fund of enthusiasm for the old metaphysics of the country, and he told the Frenchman ‘Within the last five or six years there has been a reaction in its favour Under English influence writers in Calcutta (the school of Brahmos) have denounced the immoralities and follies of the Hindu religion We now begin to recognize that under its extravagance is hidden a profound idea, and you will see that it is defended by our scholars and thinkers. We aspire to be ourselves 9
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Chevrillon commented to himself ‘Does this Hindu speak truly ? Is it possible that India, becoming once more conscious of herself, is throwing off the intellectual yoke of England ? Is it possible that m the peace enjoyed under English rule, the Hindu brain, so long paralysed by Mohammedan oppression, will once more begin to work ? And if so, what will come of it ^
Lord Curzon as Viceroy of India was also observing the movement of the Hindu mind, and on receiving a copy of Max Muller’s Auld Lang Syne , vol II, wrote to him on July 26, 1899
There is no doubt that a sort of quasi-religious, quasi-metaphysical ferment is going on in India, strongly conservative and even reactionary m its general tendency The ancient philosophies are being reexploited, and their modern scribes and professors are increasing in numbers and fame
What is to come out of this strange amalgam of superstition, transcendentalism, mental exaltation, and intellectual obscurity — with European ideas thrown as an outside ingredient into the crucible — who can say ?
Though Curzon was not fully aware of what had actually happened, a strong current of Hindu conservatism with a fairly elaborate ideology of its own, intellectually competent in its higher expression, had already come into existence, and it had put the liberal Hindu movement on the defensive This revivalist movement became political in the next stage, and pervaded the nationalist movement Thus it may be said that the transformation Max Muller wanted in Hindu life was turned into a channel of which he could not approve but which he and his fellow-Onentalists had provided His role in this movement was passive and involuntary But he deliberately took up the role of adviser and guide to the movement of religious reform in India This was natural on account not only of his scholarly interest in Hinduism, but also of his deeply religious nature He wanted the Hindus to recast their religious life in the light of what he was placing before them as its highest expression All through his life, in one way or another, he continued his interpretation of Hinduism, so that all his writing may be described as his exposition, direct or incidental, of the religion, and the most formal expositions are to be found in his Hibbert and Gifford Lectures But from the reformist point of view he stated his position most clearly and briefly in a letter to the Duke of Argyll, written in 1869 It has to be quoted in full for its importance
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It is certainly true that the religion of the Hindus, as far as we can gather from their sacred hymns in the Veda, is free from everything that strikes us as degrading in the present state of religion and morality m India But between the ancient religion of India and the religious worship of the present generation there have been several falls and several rises Buddhism, in the sixth century before our era, was a reaction against corruptions that had crept into the ancient religion even at that early time Then, Buddhism, starting with the highest aspirations, degenerated into monasticism and hypocrisy, and a most rigorous form of the old Brahxnamc religion took possession of India, and drove Buddhism out of every corner of the country Smce that time there ha\e been several religious reforms, though of a more local character, and this makes it very difficult to generalize and treat the whole religious life of India as one organic body of religious thought Yet so much may be said with perfect truth, that if the religion of India could be brought back to that simple form which it exhibits in the Veda , a great reform would be achieved Something would be lost, for some of the later metaphysical speculations on religion, and again the high and pure and almost Christian morality of Buddha, are things not to be found in the Veda But, as far as popular conceptions of the deity are concerned, the Vedic religion, though childish and crude, is free from all that is so hideous in the later Hindu Pantheon
As to the potentiality for transformation (in the sense of improvement), Max Muller made a distinction between the natural and historic religion, which he described in this letter as national and personal He wrote
With regard to the inevitable decay of religion, a difference ought to be made between two classes of religion, national and personal There are ancient religions, like that of Greece, and that of India, too, which grow up like national languages, where it is impossible to speak of individual influences, because all individual influence is determined by the silent and almost unconscious approval or disapproval of the community In these religions I think we can watch for a time a decided progress, a general elimination of what is bad, i e , what is not acceptable to the national conscience
But religions like Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity too, belong to a different class They start with a high ideal conceived by a representative man, representative either of a nation or of the whole of humanity, and that high ideal is hardly ever realized, it has to adapt itself to larger circles and lower levels, and can only be kept from utter degeneration by constant effort at reform
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It will be seen from this letter that Max Muller had no admiration for the pos t-Vedic manifestations of Hinduism, except for the religious aspect of the philosophy of Vedanta He never discussed the orgiastic and erotic aspects of Hinduism which some writers in the West seem now to regard as the brightest light from the East But we can guess what his opinion must have been, for he could not have remained ignorant of them As to the beliefs and practices of contemporary Hindus, his unfavourable opinion was openly voiced In fact, he considered Brahmanism to be dead, and said so in plain language in his Westminster lecture on Missions, delivered on December 3, 1873 Referring to the Biahmanic religion he said
That religion is still professed by at least 110,000,000 of human souls, and, to judge from the last census, even that enormous number falls much short of the real truth And yet I do not shrink from saying that their religion is dying or dead And why ? Because it cannot stand the light of day
The worship of Siva, of Vishnu, and the other popular deities, is of the same, nay, in many cases of a more degraded and savage character than the worship of Jupiter, Apollo, and Minerva, it belongs to a stratum of thought which lsdong buried under our feet it may live on, like the lion and the tiger, but the mere air of free thought and civilized like will extinguish it A religion may linger on for a long time, it may be accepted by the large masses of the people, because it is there, and there is nothing better But when a religion has ceased to produce defenders of the faith, prophets, champions, martyrs, it has ceased to live, in the true sense of the word, and in that sense the old, orthodox Brahmanism has ceased to live for more than a thousand years
Here he was speaking of that form of Hindu religion which according to him appeared in India after the degeneration of Buddhism and supplanted Buddhism — the form, that is to say, which is conventionally described as the Puramc Then he turned to Hinduism as it was practised in his time, and went on to say
It is true there are millions of children, women, and men in India who fall down before the stone image of Vishnu, with his four arms, riding on a creature half bird, half man, or sleeping on the serpent, who worship Siva, a monster with three eyes, riding naked on a bull, with a necklace of skulls for his ornament There are human beings who still believe in a god of war, Kartikeya, with six faces, riding on a peacock, and holding bow and arrow in his hands, and who invoke a god of success, Ganesa, with four hands and an elephant’s head, sitting on a
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rat Na>, it is true that, in the broad daylight of the nineteenth century, the figure of the goddess Kali is carried through the streets of her own city, Calcutta, her wild dishevelled hair reaching to her feet, with a necklace of human heads, her tongue protruded from her mouth, her girdle stained with blood All this is true , but ask any Hindu who can read and write and think, whether these are the gods he believes m, and he will smile at your credulity How long this living death of national religion in India may last, no one can tell for our purposes, however, for gaming an idea of the issue of the great religious struggle of the future, that religion too is dead and gone
What Max Muller said about the educated Hindu was only partly true If he had mixed with a large number of them, as Sir Henry Maine did, he would have found that ‘the educated youth of India certainly affect a dislike of many things which they do care about, and pretend to many tastes which they do not really share’ If Muller had asked his educated Indian whether, gomg further than his private scepticism, he was ready to denounce the idol-worship openly, he would certainly have heard the argument that, however unmeanmgful to him, it was useful for the common herd If Muller further asked whether image-worship took place m his house, he would have heard the plea that he could not hurt the feelmgs of his mother or wife by putting an end to that Muller would perhaps have been too polite to ask if the scoffing Hmdu himself did not at times descend to this worship and to practices much worse, but if he had he would have got only discreet evasion However that may be, Max Muller’s view that Brahmanism was dead led him into a controversy with Sir Alfred Lyall, whose knowledge of India was both wide and deep He replied to Muller in an article in the Fortnightly Review (July i, 1874), and contended that so far from being dead Hinduism was very much alive
Muller replied in the next issue of the Fortnightly Review , and tried to explain himself rather than to contradict Lyall He admitted that objections raised against his describing Brahmanism as already dead had force, and wrote ‘The word was too strong , at all events, it was liable to be misunderstood What I meant to say was that the popular worship of Siva and Vishnu belongs to the same intellectual stratum as the worship of Jupiter and Apollo, that it is an anachronism in the nineteenth century ’ In support of his position Muller quoted Lyall’s opinion ‘That Brahmanism may possibly melt away of a heap and break up, I would not absolutely deny ’ This has not
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happened, nor is likely to happen In expecting its eventual disappearance both Max Muller and Sir Alfred Lyall were wrong If one is not thinking of becoming , but only of being , Hinduism is what the Hindus describe it to be the Eternal Way
Nevertheless, holding his own view of the religious life of contemporary Hindus, Muller naturally would consider how it could be reformed and revitalized In his early days he thought that Hinduism could not be reformed, and must be replaced by Christianity Thus on August 25, 1856, he wrote to Bunsen from Oxford ‘India is much riper for Christianity than Rome or Greece were at the time of St Paul ’ But he added that he would not like to go to India as a missionary because that would make him dependent on the parsons, and he did not care to go as a civil servant as that would make him dependent on the government What he preferred was this ‘I should like to live for ten years quite quietly and learn the language, try to make friends, and then see whether I was fit to take part in a work, by means of which the old mischief of Indian priestcraft could be overthrown and the way opened for the entrance of simple Christian teaching ’ He thought he could manage to go to India with Maharajah Dahp Singh, son of Ranjit Singh Dalip Smgh, he knew, was much at Court, and it seemed to him that this prince, who had become a Christian, was destined to play a political part in India
But of course, nothing came of this, and Muller did not pursue the scheme seriously If he had he would have found that it was not practical Not that he was wrong in thinking that Christianity would appeal to the Hindus, for at that time most educated Hindus with a religious bent were feeling the need for a living monotheistic faith. But the obstacle to Christianity was not religious, it was political and social The British authorities in India were nght in dismissing the idea of creating a religious mission for their rule The mere suspicion of an interference with religious taboos gave rise to serious disaffection among their Hmdu soldiers, and was one of the causes of the rebellion next year
Max Muller subsequently rested his hopes for a religious reform m India on the Vedic studies in the West He had already learnt about the monotheistic movement of Rammohun Roy, who was preaching a new form of Hinduism based on the latest products of the Vedic canon, the Upanishads , and had established a monotheistic society in Calcutta Rammohun Roy came to England in late life,
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and died at Bristol in 1833 He had seen Rosen, the compiler of the first printed edition of the Rig-Veda , though a partial one, at work on the manuscripts, and told him that instead of wasting his time on it, he should study the Upamshads
In Calcutta, however, some of his followers thought that in order to strengthen the movement among the less educated people they could not depend solely on the Upamshads , whose doctrines were too pure and sublime to suit the gross ideas of common people They began to uphold the Vedas as revelation But they soon found that the Vedtc corpus was so heterogeneous that as revelation they had either to be adopted as a whole or rejected as a whole They rejected it formally in 1850
The lead in this action was taken by Debendranath Tagore, who himself had found release from his religious doubts in the Upamshads When he became the leader of the monotheistic society which was called the Brahmo Samaj, he thought it necessary to find out the real character of the Vedas by sending four young Brahmins to Benares to study them at this centre of Hindu learning and religion It was upon hearing their account that Debendranath decided to make no use of the Vedtc Samhitas for the new monotheism
Max Muller thought that the sending of the Brahmins might have had a connexion with his own work on the Rtg-Veda, and so wrote to Debendranath Upon reading the letter, Debendranath wrote to Max Muller that he had received no intimation regarding Muller’s work on the Rtg-Veda , and that the idea of sending the Brahmins to Benares had originated with him independently
Thus the Vedtc Samhitas , or the Vedas strictly so-called, did not form the basis of the Brahmo monotheistic movement, which took its stand on the Upamshads Even of them the son of Debendranath Tagore, Satyendranath Tagore, who was the first Indian to enter the ICS, wrote that his father’s spiritual aspirations were awakened and fed by the ‘sublimer portions of those wild treatises \ This was as far as the Brahmos in the first stage of their movement would go to draw support from the Vedtc texts The Upamshads continued to be the theoretical basis of the Brahmo doctrine But spirit and liturgy as well as devotions were soon taken over from Christianity, and Brahmoism in its spirit though not in its form became an adaptation to Hinduism of Christianity This was due primarily to Keshub Chunder Sen, the next leadei of the Brahmo movement and a friend of Muller
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In India the acceptance of the Vedas as a basis for any form of modern Hinduism was due to another Hindu reformer, who, however, had nothing to borrow from the West This was Swarm Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj, a very nationalistic and somewhat fanatical sect of Hindu monotheists, virtually confined to the Punjab and Punjabis He did not know English, but he knew the Vedas by heart, and interpreted them in his own way He regarded the Vedas as revelation, divinely inspired, and supra-human He died in 1883, after the publication of Max Muller’s edition of the RigVeda, and it was reported that he carried the edition with him But in his commentary on the Rig-
- Veda in Sanskrit he was very hard on Muller He could not understand why Mullei cared for the Vedas at all if he did not accept their divine origin
Though Max Muller’s hope that his work on Vedic literature and religion would help towards the creation of a new and purer form of Hinduism for modern Hindus was not realized, it should not be assumed that it made no impact on their religious thought How contemporary Hindus regarded his Vedic enterprise has already been described Over and above, there is no doubt that his researches and ideas acted as a catalyst on the mind of the Hindus More especially, his conception of the history of Hinduism, which presented an antithesis between its Vedic form and the later so-called Puranic form as the most important fact of the evolution, was accepted both by liberal and conservative Hindus Though it is no longer historically tenable, it still survives in a modified version ’ It is possible that if Max Muller had descended to the claptrap about Hinduism ladled out by Western bigots or charlatans of Eastern and Hindu spirituality he might have become the founder of a school of Hinduism in India But he wholly disapproved of and almost despised this Western infatuation with Hinduism, which was displayed in his time by Madame Blavatsky in a very assertive form Max Muller first heard about her from his Parsee friend, Malabari, to whom he wrote in 1879 * *1 was muc h amused at your “theosophic Russian countess”. If she would learn Panim while she is in India she might do more useful work ’ Soon he knew much more about her, and grew suspicious Madame Blavatsky had not gone to India to learn, but to teach her version of Buddhism and Hinduism
She was ignorant of Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature, but was proclaiming to the world that Hindu philosophy, particularly that
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of the Vedanta and of Buddhism (she could not always distinguish one from the other) were infinitely superior to all the philosophies of Europe, and even at that time the Brahmans were the depositories of the primeval wisdom of the world At one stage she was with Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj, and she declared that between them they would soon promulgate a new theosophy which would eclipse all former systems of thought But Dayananda was soon disillusioned and would have nothing to do with the Polish countess But she founded a Theosophical Society in India, with its headquarters at Adyar in Madras After her death one of her associates, Colonel Olcott, protested to Max Muller, and wanted to know whether he held that there was no esoteric interpretation of the Sanskrit Sastras
Max Muller’s reply was straightforward He flatly contradicted that there was anything esoteric in Buddhism, for it was a religion for the people at large, for the poor and the suffering and the downtrodden He pointed out that Buddha himself protested against the idea of keeping anything secret He admitted that there was more esotencism in Brahmanism, but even in that there was no such thing as an esoteric interpretation of the Sastras These, he said, had but one meaning, and all who had been properly prepared by education had access to them.
As to the countess herself, Muller regretted that he had hurt the feelings of Colonel Olcott, but he was unmoved as to his general judgement He said in a letter to Colonel Olcott written on June 10 , 1893-
I felt it my duty to protest against what seemed to me a lowering of a beautiful religion Her name and prestige were doing real mischief among people who were honestly striving for higher religious views, and who were quite willing to recognize all that was true and beautiful and good in other religions Madame Blavatsky seems to me to have had the same temperament, but she was either deceived by others or carried away by her own imaginations
In India the so-called Theosophy she preached was taken up by a number of educated Hindus with somewhat immature ideas about religion, especially as proclaimed through the writings and speeches of Mrs Annie Besant Max Muller knew that the educated Hindus were showing a great readiness to succumb to the Western charlatanry regarding their religion, and he described it in a parable or dnshtanta (example) taken from an Indian story
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Once there was a man with a peculiar power to grunt exactly like a pig, and he made a good deal of money by showing off his power of mimicry to the common people In one village where he was giving an exhibition, a holy man passed by, who decided to teach a lesson to these credulous people He advertised that he would show them a better performance, with much better grunting, free of cost People flocked to him, and, producing a real pig, he squeezed it to make it grunt But the people said Ts that all ? We hear that every day, what’s there to it ^ And they all went away The sage said ‘Here is a splendid lesson We seldom care for reality, and always go in for imitation ’
At that time the counter-charlatanry of the Hindus had not yet reached the West and found victims Hinduism in a new form was being preached by men like Swami Vivekananda, and it was largely Vedantic Max Muller welcomed this preaching As he himself has said ‘From what I have seen and read of Vivekananda and his colleagues, they seem to me honestly bent on doing good work 9 But even in Vivekananda’s teaching Muller perceived now and then something of the old Blavatsky leaven that had not been entirely discarded And on more general grounds he gave an opinion which was very sound He looked upon Vedanta as an expression of the Way of Knowledge of the Hindus, and did not like the dependence of the new preachers on Ramakrishna, who belonged to the Way of Love He admired Ramakrishna, and wrote a book on him at the end of his life, but he could not approve of the mixing up of Ramakrishna’s teaching with the Vedanta As he put the matter
Vivekananda and the other followers of Ramakrishna ought, however, to teach their followers how to distinguish between the perfervid utterances of their teacher, Ramakrishna, an enthusiastic Bhakta (devotee) and the clear and dry style of the Sutras of Badarayana However, as long as these devoted preachers keep true to the Upamshads, the Sutras , and the recognized commentaries, whether of Samkara or Ramanuja, I wish them all the success they deserve by their unselfish devotion and their high ideals.
But this has not happened so far as the popular reception of Vivekananda’s teaching is concerned It has resulted for their followers in a personality cult of both Ramakrishna and Vivekananda
With the realization that he could not influence the Hindu revival
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m the way he desired, Muller’s practical interest in the religious life of India took another direction Towards the very end of his life he tried to persuade that section of the Hindu monotheists who owed their inspiration and zeal largely to Christianity, or at all events to Christ, to declare themselves formally as Christian That was, of course, that branch of the Brahmos which was led by his friend Keshub Chunder Sen, and after Keshub’s death by his friend and disciple, Protap Chunder Mozoomdar
The Hindu theists had a great diversity of opinion regarding Jesus and Christianity, ranging from intense hatred on the one hand to profound respect and personal attachment on the other Sen belonged to the latter group Throughout his life he remained devoted to Christ, though in his own way He gave an idea of what that was in many of the speeches he made in England during his visit in 1870 ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘have I cherished respect and reverence for Christ ? Why is it that, though I do not take the name of Christian I still persevere in offering my hearty thanksgivings to Jesus Christ He gave his answers
There must be something in the life and death of Christ — there must be something in his great gospel which tends to bring comfort and light and strength to a heart heavy-laden with iniquity and wickedness
My first inquiry was, What is the creed taught in the Bible ? Must I go through all the dogmas and doctrines which constitute Christianity m the eye of the various sects, or is there something simple which I can at once grasp and turn to account ?
I found Christ spoke one language and Christianity another I went to him prepared to hear what he had to say, and was immensely gratified when he told me ‘Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and love thy neighbour as thyself.’
Christ never demanded from me worship or adoration that is due to God, the Creator of the Universe
He places Himself before me as the spirit I must imbibe in order to approach the Divine Father, as the great Teacher and guide who will lead me to God
Christ demands of us absolute sanctification and purification of the heart In this matter, also, I see Christ on one side, and Christian sects on the other
To be a Christian then is to be Christ-like Christianity means becoming like Christ, not acceptance of Christ as a proposition or as an
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outward representation, but spiritual conformity with the life and character of Christ By Christ I understand one who said, ‘Thy will be done *
I feel I must love Christ, let Christians say what they like against me, that Christ I must love, for he preached love for an enemy
It was in the light of all this that he said that the so-called followers of Christ were not yet Christian After the controversy over the schism in the Brahmo Samaj and Max Muller’s defence of Keshub Shunder Sen in his letter to The Times , the nature of Keshub’s adherence to Christianity was discussed between them It arose from a complaint by Keshub Chunder Sen about an attack on him by Professor Momer Williams, who had replied to Muller’s defence About this Sen wrote
The manner in which he has treated us is so utterly unworthy of him, and is marked with such vacillations, wavering, and duplicity, that I can have no misgivings in accepting your verdict It seems rather strange that Professor Momer Williams, who professes to be a devout Christian, should withhold his regard and sympathy from that section of the Brahmo community which is most allied to Jesus and makes the nearest approach to the religion founded by Him As for his arguments, they have been smashed times beyond number In private letters to me he professes friendship, and I have simply warned him in the most kindly spirit to ascertain facts before rushing into print
Though Max Muller had his own opinion of Professor Momer Williams, he did not wholly condemn him On the other hand he tried to make Sen understand why, despite his attitude to Christianity, many sincere Christians felt unsympathetic to him In fact, it was Sen’s Christianity itself which was the cause So Muller himself wrote to Sen that in order to discuss this question he thought that a perfect understanding was necessary between the two as to the true character of Christ He wrote
It may seem strange that a son of India, one who calls himself a believer in Brahman (the Absolute Spirit), and who therefore, in strict theological phraseology, would be called a nonChristian, should have given offence to men who call themselves Christians by what seems to them language of excessive veneration for Christ Yet it is so, and that is why, in the case of some of your critics at least, the objections to your deeply impassioned utterances about Christ arise from good and honest motives
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The difficulty was Sen’s rejection of the very Kerygma of Christianity Muller gave him a rather long explanation according to his own understanding of it, which he said would be regarded by many theologians of his day as very strange Even so he set it forth, and the crucial passage was
Christianity is Christianity by this one fundamental truth, that as God is the father of man, so truly, and not poetically or metaphorically only, man is the son of God, participating in God’s very essence and nature, though separated from God by self and sin This oneness of nature (homoousia) between the Divine and the Human does not lower the concept of God by bringing it nearer to the level of humanity, on the contrary, it raises the old concept of man and brings it nearer to its true ideal
This was Muller’s interpretation of the notion of homoousia put into the Christian creed at the Nicene Council at the suggestion of Constantine Then he observed * After these remarks you will better be able to understand the danger of speaking of Christ in language which carries us back to the panegyrics addressed by pagan poets to their gods and idols If you speak of Christ as not perfectly human, m His own sense of the word, you make a new idol of Him, and you utterly destroy the very soul of His religion ’
Sen replied *
‘There is hardly a syllable in your last epistle which I should hesitate to endorse You have said exactly what I should have said, only in a more learned and philosophical style So far as your intellectual estimate of Christ is concerned I do not think there is much difference between us I am so glad and thankful that the Spirit of God has helped me to work my way through Hinduism to the point where an enlightened Christianity has brought you I have always disclaimed the Christian name, and will not identify myself with the Christian church, for I set my face completely against the popular doctrine of Christ’s divinity
There the matter rested so far as Keshub Chunder Sen was concerned More than this he would not concede But eighteen years later Max Muller raised the question of the affiliation of the Brahmo movement, led by Keshub Chunder Sen, with Christianity In 1899, when he was in Germany, he wrote from Ems a long letter to Protap Chunder Mozoomdar, making an appeal to him formally to declare his community as Christian
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My dear friend, You know for many years I have watched your efforts to purify the popular religion of India, and thereby to bring it nearer to the purity and perfection of other religions, particularly of Christianity You know also that I have paid close attention to the endeavours of those who came before you, of men like Rammohun Roy, Debendranath Tagore, Keshub Chunder Sen, and others, in whose footsteps you have boldly followed I know that you have met with many disappointments and many delays, but you have never lost heart and never lost patience I confess that I have several times felt very unhappy about the mischances that have befallen your good cause, but even when Keshub Chunder Sen was forsaken by a number of his friends and followers, on utterly insufficient grounds, as far as I could judge, and again, when he was taken from us in the very midst of his glorious work, I never lost faith in the final success of his work, though I began to doubt whether I should live to see the full realization of his hopes
He then spoke about what the Brahmo movement had accomplished and what, as he saw the matter, they had still to do
You have given up a great deal, polytheism, idolatry, and your elaborate sacrificial worship You have surrendered also, as far as I can judge, the claim of divine revelation which had been so carefully formulated by your ancient theologians in support of the truth of the Vedas These were great sacrifices, for whatever may be thought of your ancient traditions, to give up what we have been taught by our fathers and mothers, requires a very strong conviction, and a very strong will But though this surrender has brought you much nearer to us, there still remain many minor points on which you differ among yourselves in your various samajes or congregations Allow me to say that these differences seem to me to have little to do with real religion , still they must be removed, because they prevent united action on your part If you are once united among yourselves, you need no longer trouble about this or that missionary, whether he come from London, Rome, Geneva, or Moscow They all profess to bring you the Gospel of Christ Take the New Testament and read it for yourselves, and judge for yourselves whether the words of Christ as contained in it satisfy you
He reassured Mozoomdar about Christian doctrine and organization
Christ comes to you [he wrote] as He comes to us in the only trustworthy records preserved of him in the Gospels We have not even the
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right to dictate our interpretation of these Gospels to you, particularly if we consider how differently we interpret them ourselves If you accept His teachings as recorded, you are a Christian There is no necessity whatever for your being formally received into the membership of one or other sect of the Christian Church, whether reformed or unreformed That will only delay the growth of Christianity in India
He recalled Sen’s words to him that after all Christ was in many respects an Oriental who might be better understood by Orientals He also said that he saw nothing in the proclaimed Brahmo creed or the view of God held by the Brahmos which was not Christian After developing all his points at length, he closed with this earnest and eloquent exhortation
From my point of view, India, at least the best part of it, is already converted to Christianity You want no persuasion to become a follower of Christ Then make up your mind to act for yourselves Unite your flock, and put up a few folds to hold them together, and to prevent them from straying The bridge has been built for you by those who came before you Step boldly forward, it will not break under you, and you will find many friends to welcome you on the other shore, and among them none more delighted than your old friend and fellow labourer
Mozoomdar did not answer this letter for a long time, but he published it with a public rejoinder from himself, in which among other things he wrote about the attitude of the official representatives of Christianity in India
What disconcerts me is the half-expressed contempt which the Christian leaders, even of the liberal school, seem to have of the Hindu ideal, and spirituality When I express my ardent love for Christ and Christianity, they are kindly in sympathy but the moment I say that Christ and His religion will have to be interpreted in India through Indian antecedents and the Indian medium of thought, I am suspected of trying to bend Christianity down to heathenism.
Later he wrote to Max Muller
A wholesale acceptance of the Christian name by the Brahmo Samaj is neither possible nor desirable, within measurable time, it would lead to misconception, which would do only harm But the acceptance
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of the Christ spirit, or, as you term it, ‘the essential religion of Christ’, is not only possible, but an actual fact at the present moment Liberal souls in Christendom will have to rest content with this at least now , and let the name take care of itself
In the meanwhile, Max Muller had fallen very seriously ill, and his life was despaired of But as soon as he was recovered a little, he wrote a second letter to Mozoomdar, even before receiving his personal answer He had seen the Indian papers and had gathered from them that his letter had produced a certain impression He had been abused for it both in India and in England He wrote ‘But surely you owe much to Christ and Christianity, your very movement would not exist without Christianity One must be above public opinion in these matters, and trust to truth which is stronger than public opinion However, the name is a small matter Only I thought that truth and gratitude would declare in favour of Christian Brahmos, or Christian Aryas *
However, on March n, 1900, less than eight months before his death, he again wrote to Mozoomdar ‘You ought to know me enough to know that I am not trying to convert you to Christianity. If you are not a Christian you must not call yourself a Christian 9 He repeated that he did not want the Brahmos to jom any existing Christian church or sect
You say there that your country cannot do without Christ — that India is Christ’s, and Christ is India’s You speak actually of an Indian Church of Christ Now these words can have one meaning only You are Christ’s, and in that sense you are Christians, without being Roman Catholics, or Anglicans, or Lutherans I do not want you to join any existing church or sect, I only wish you to give honour to the name of Christ to whom you owe the best part of your present religion
This was Max Muller’s last testament to India about religion There can be no doubt that in this he spoke from the heart But it embroiled him with the orthodox and dogmatic section of the Anglican Church In the Diocesan Conference held at Oxford in the autumn of 1899, the Principal of Pusey House denounced Max Muller for his letter to Mozoomdar, and declared that Muller had asked the Brahmos to call themselves Christian without believing m the central doctrine on which the faith and life of the Church was founded
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The Rev H J Bidder, Vicar of St Giles and a close friend of Max Muller, at once replied to the accusation on behalf of his sick parishioner, saying that ‘as one privileged to minister to his closing days, and well acquainted with his religious convictions, I cannot allow the reckless assertion made against Professor Max Muller to go uncontradicted in his own city 5 Some more correspondence followed, and Mr Bidder wound up in the Oxford Times with this remark ‘Perhaps I ought to have remembered that he enjoys a position in the greater world of religious thought — to say nothing of mward strength and serenity — which places him beyond the reach of attack either from private bigotry or from the Oxford Diocesan Conference 5
But the more dogmatic elements in the Anglican Church were from the first prejudiced against Max Muller This prejudice burst out in public condemnation of him after his lecture on the Missions in the nave of Westminster Abbey on December 3, 1873, at the invitation of Dean Stanley
From the next day Muller began to receive both congratulations and vituperation Liddon, one of the most eminent Anglican divines of that time, seized his hand and told him T rejoice from my heart that you have been helping us ’ Ruskm approved But there were others who wholly disapproved of what he said Some papers wrote that he should be sent to prison for having brawled in church, and after reading some of these an Oxford tradesman rushed out when he saw Muller passing and said to him ‘Well, sir, when they send you to prison, count on a hot dinner from my table every week/ Henry Reeve, the editor of the Edinburgh Review , though a friend, wrote to Muller ‘By the law of England, as I read it, an unordained person who preaches or lectures in a church is guilty of a misdemeanour, punishable with three months’ prison * However, Dean Stanley had taken the opinion of Lord Coleridge, the Lord Chief Justice, and so Muller could write to his friend George Bunsen ‘There is no going to prison yet.’
The mam offence was that he deprecated the excessive emphasis on the creeds, and also the attempts of some missionaries to uproot the converts from their own society In regard to doctrine he had said ‘The fundamentals of our religion are not in these poor creeds ; true Christianity lives, not in our belief, but in our love — in our love of God , and in our love of man, founded on our love of God 9 On this Sir Alfred Lyall commented somewhat ironically ‘Missionaries
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will even yet hardly agree that the essentials of their religion are not in the creeds, but in love, because they are sent forth to propound scriptures which say clearly that what we believe or disbelieve is literally a burning question ’
Max Muller’s relations with other Indian movements have now to be considered, though briefly A man of his humanitarian outlook could not be indifferent to the social abuses in India, some of which were very cruel Earlier in life he had carried on a controversy with Raja Radhakanta Deb, whose opinion of the Vedic work of Max Muller has been quoted earlier, about the burning of Hindu widows, of which the Raja approved theoretically Max Muller was puzzled by this, though he had an explanation for it He wrote
That an educated Hindu should defend the burning of widows seems strange , still, if Popes and Cardinals could defend autos-da-fe or the burning of heretics, nay even of witches, because the fire would purify and save their souls which could not be saved otherwise, why should not an Indian Raja have been convinced that the burning of widows could not be wrong, believing, as he did, that it was enjoined by a lost Sakha of the Veda> and that the poor women could not be saved unless they followed their husbands on their heels into another world ?
He also referred to ancient Teutonic mythology, according to which Nanna and Brunhilda were burnt with their husbands But in his later life the movement of social reform in which he was most interested was the prevention of child marriage in Hindu society He had heard of its inhumanity from Rama Bai, as well as from his friend the Parsee reformer Malabari Malabari was trying to induce the Government of India to stop this by legislation, which it was most unwilling to do Its policy was not to interfere with Hindu customs and beliefs, and this policy had been formally announced in the Proclamation of Queen Victoria to the peoples of India So when Malabari wrote to him about his disappointment Muller asked him not to consider the battle lost, but also said that for the moment nothing more could be expected from the government
About this custom two questions arose Firstly, whether it was sanctioned and made obligatory by the Hindu sacred law, on this Muller was positive that no Hindu scripture sanctioned it, and he added that no Hindu Pandit now gainsaid his opinion Secondly, whether such a widespread Hindu custom should be interfered
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with by the government On this too Muller had a definite view He was no advocate of social and cultural neutrality on the part of the British Government in India He held that Pax Britannic a should be supplemented by Lax Bntanmca , and made out his case against Hindu infant maruage on the ground of humanity He wrote to Malaban on October 26, 1886
Government does not deserve the name of Government, if it declares itself unable to protect each individual subject against personal torts, whether sanctioned by customs or not Now, infant betrothal is a tort — it is a contract made without consent of one of the parties If therefore the party suffers and wishes to be released from an unjust contract, the government ought so far to protect him or her Whether the Government is foreign or native, does not matter It is your Government, so long as you accept it and enjoy all the advantages of it, and to turn round and say that your Government should not prevent and punish iniquity is self-contradictory
He declared emphatically that the ‘custom of infant betrothal is unjust, the custom of infant marriage criminal’ But he also knew that he would be abused by the Hindus for his opinion, yet he could not remain silent, and he said ‘The more my friends in India abuse me, the more proud I shall feel If they call you ignorant, because you are a Parsee, what will they call me — a mere Mlechchha The question came up again in 1890, when Malabari proposed to come to England to interest the British Government in his efforts to put an end to infant marriage Early in that year Max Muller wrote to him, giving his views on child marriage from another angle
I have never doubted that early marriage is the greatest impediment m the natural development of a woman’s character, and I am equally certain that your stunted wives and mothers are the chief cause of the slow, the very slow social progress in India You have made rapid progress in everything else, but you do not know yet what light an educated, healthy and thoughtful wife can spread over every home, whether rich or poor I have nothing to say about the physiological side of the question, but from a psychological point of view, marriage at ten, at twelve, even at fifteen, seems to me the surest means to stunt the natural growth of the mind in its various phases The law should prevent all that is really noxious to physical health, no individual effort on the part of men of light and leading in India can effect a change in the long-established custom
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Later in the year Malabari came to England and established contacts with leading persons in the country to find out what could be done from England to discourage child marriage One of them, Lord Northbrook, who was a former Viceroy of India, wrote to Muller
I believe Mr Malabari to be worthy of encouragement, and I am disposed to think the time has arrived when the question of how far the Government of India might so alter the law as to discourage infant marriages should be seriously considered by practical men
Would you support Mr Malabari’s assertion that infant marriage is not a Hindu religious institution, but a custom to which no religious authority is attached ?
Muller’s opinion on this subject was, of course, definite He tried to establish contacts for Malabari with, for instance, Princess Christian, the daughter of Queen Victoria But he also told him that, though she had agreed to see him, Malabari should not expect her to express any opinion in public, whatever her feelings might be about the question Regarding explorations in governmental quarters, Muller wrote to Malabari
Lord Lansdowne has been written to about the enabling clause You understand what I mean — a clause enabling a father to keep his daughter till the time has come for her to leave her father’s house That clause will probably be carried by Lord Lansdowne in Council There ought to be no pressure brought to bear on him He ought to be allowed to do it himself, spontaneously Any public demonstration to bring this about would, under present circumstances, do harm The other question, as to raising the age of consent, is much more serious — is in fact, a political question, that will have to be fought out openly m India
By that time however social reform had become of secondary interest in Indian politics, and the nationalist movement had emerged Max Muller watched it from a distance, but did not think of intervening in current Indian politics, except on one occasion when he thought a deeper issue of Indo-British human relations was involved. The occasion was indeed significant, for it not only created the Indian National Congress as the organized mouthpiece of Indian nationalism, but also brought into being a strong sense
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of alienation of the new Indian intelligentsia from British rule The occasion was the introduction of the so-called Ilbert Bill, technically a bill to modify the Criminal Procedure Code, by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, Legal Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, at the instance of the Viceroy, Lord Ripon It sought to remove an anomaly in the judicial system of India which seemed to perpetuate a racial discrimination between the British and Indian members of the judiciary At that time Indian magistrates and judges could not try European (mostly British, of course) accused persons in the district courts, though they did so in the capital cities of the provinces
At once there was a furore among the British in India They not only started a violent agitation against the bill, but even threatened to kidnap the Viceroy and hold him to ransom This resistance was encouraged from inside the government even by the members of the Indian Civil Service It had a strong backwash in England as well What induced Max Muller to join this controversy was a report by the judges of Calcutta High Court, which was an implicit condemnation of the bill The report was accepted, not as polemics, but as a clear, impartial and judicial pronouncement which had to be accepted
This Max Muller disputed in a letter to The Times , published on August 6, 1883, refuting the conclusions of the judges paragraph by paragraph What surprised him was not so much the loud clamour which was taken as a unanimous condemnation of the bill by British public opinion both in India and in England, but the number of eminent members of the Indian Civil Service and the Indian Army who supported Lord Ripon Lord Ripon himself wrote a letter to Max Muller, thanking him for his letter On September 3, 1883, he wrote from Simla
Dear Professor Max Muller, I hope that you will excuse me for troubling you with a few lines to thank you very much for the able letter which you have addressed to The Times in reply to the Report of the Judges of the Calcutta High Court upon the so-called ‘Ilbert Bill’, and also for the very valuable support which you have given to my policy in this country
I can assure you that I appreciate very highly the assistance with you have rendered to me It is a great satisfaction to me to find that the course of policy which I am pursuing meets with your approval I have need of all the aid which I can receive from England, for I am assailed
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here with a storm of bitter and unscrupulous hostility, which you, who dwell in a calmer atmosphere, can scarcely realize
Believe me,
Yours faithfully Ripon
Muller thanked the Viceroy, and said that his letter was evoked by the fear that The Times ‘would go on quoting that Opinion of the Judges as unanswerable, till people who did not take the trouble to read it would believe that it was so’ The bill was passed finally with a compromise clause under which a British accused could demand half the jury to be European The agitation left a permanent legacy of misunderstanding with Indians
However, Max Muller was a realist, and he disapproved of the eagerness of educated Indians to get into the Indian Civil Service, that is, to be employed in the administration at the highest level on a footing of equality with the British members of the Service So he wrote to his friend Malabari on September 5, 1884, when the question of the equality of Indians with the British in all matters of government was provoking a particularly bitter agitation He wrote:
With regard to your countrymen, I wonder that they care so much for the Indian Civil Service If I were a Hindu, I should look out for very different work to benefit my countrymen To tell you the truth, I do not believe in the efficiency of a mixed Civil Service Oil and water will not mix — let the oil be at the top, there is plenty of room for the water beneath
On the whole, Max Muller immensely admired British rule in India, and looked upon it as a political tour deforce His description of it in his reminiscences was very graphic
The government of India by a mere handful of Englishmen [he wrote] is, indeed, an achievement unparalleled in the whole history of the world The suppression of the Indian Mutiny shows what stuff English soldiers and statesmen are made of If people say that ours is not an age for Epic poetry, let them read Lord Roberts’s Forty-one Years in India When I see in a circus a man standing with outstretched legs on two or three horses, and two men standing on his shoulders, and other men standing on theirs, and a little child at the top of all, while the horses are running full gallop round the arena, I feel what I feel when watching the government of India One hardly dares to breathe, and
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one wishes one could persuade one’s neighbours also to sit still and hold their breath If ever there were an accident, the crash would be fearful, and who would suffer most? Fortunately, by this time the people of India know all this
He felt too that under the British Parliament’s rule, the Government of India was not what it was under the East India Company The motive power, he said, had passed from the highest authority in India to people ‘at home’ , by which he meant that India had become enmeshed in British party politics He even felt that ‘Mill, who was so much abused for his defence of the old East India Company, was right after all, and that it was a misfortune for India when it was drawn mto the vortex of party government’
After the Ilbert Bill Muller laid the blame for the disturbed political atmosphere in India partly on the Opposition, and said ‘There are some politicians who would not shrink from saying, “Perish India, if only we can oust Gladstone 1 ” What India wants, and will want for many years to come, is rest and quiet work ’ He considered the British residents in India even more responsible As he wrote to Malabari in 1884 ‘The fault, however, lies not with you, but with the new race of English settlers in India Unless they are taught how to behave, and kept under control by a strong hand, government in India will become impossible the whole blame for the present disturbed state falls on the English settlers in India, and on the scheming politicians in England ’ In this he was right But Max Muller was not yet prepared to envisage an India independent of British rule Considering the renewed political dissatisfaction among Indians in 1896, this time over the cost of the Indian troops sent to Egypt, he wrote to Malabari
I wish there was more English feeling in India, and that it would show itself in words and deeds What is the use of haggling over the pay of an Indian regiment in Egypt? It is a mere nothing compared with the true interests, the peace, and prosperity of India I can understand Indian patriots who wish to get rid of England altogether, but those who see what that would mean should take to their oars manfully, and pull a good English stroke You are in the same boat — you can float together, and you would go down together So it strikes me, though you know that I am generally on the Indian side
It has to be added that in expressing this kind of opinion at the end of the century, Muller was not saying something with which the
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greatest Indians of the age did not agree Bankim Chandra Chatterji, who is regarded as an apostle of Bengali nationalism and revolutionary activity, tried to drive the moral home in his famous novel Ananda Math, namely that British rule in India was providential Before him the great Indian reformer Rammohun Roy, who is looked upon as the precursor of Indian nationalism, had said to Victor Jacquemont that ‘India requires many more years of English domination so that she may not have many things to lose while she is reclaiming her political independence 5
Max Muller also pleaded for leniency to those who were considered to be dangerous extremists among the nationalist leaders m India So, when the famous nationalist Tilak was imprisoned for sedition in 1898, he put his signature to a petition which urged consideration to be shown to him Muller wrote to Sir John Lubbock explaining why he spoke for Tilak
My interest in Tilak is certainly that of a Sanskrit scholar, for though I do not agree with the arguments put forward in his Orion , or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas (Bombay, 1893), I cannot help feeling sorry that we should lose the benefit of his labours I sent him my edition of the Rig - Veda , but I am told now that he is not allowed to read even his Bible and Prayer-book in prison You see, from the wording of the petition, that we do not question the justice of the sentence But the warning has now been given, and none too soon, though I do not believe that there is any sedition lurking in India at present, not even in the hearts of such men at Tilak
Max Muller was in his fundamental inclinations an enthusiast, and remained one till his last day But what was equally pronounced m him as an intellectual was his balance of mind and capacity to see both sides of any question He could thus support British rule in India and also champion India and Indians