Thus, Colonel Tod, Whom I Have Already
Quoted Several Times, Is Said To Have Been Told By A Mahant, The
Chief Of An Ancient Pagoda-Monastery:
"Sahib, you lose your time
in vain researches.
The Bellati India [India of foreigners] is
before you, but you will never see the Gupta India [secret India].
We are the guardians of her mysteries, and would rather cut out
each other's tongues than speak."
Yet, nevertheless, Tod succeeded in learning a good deal. It must
be borne in mind that no Englishman has ever been loved so well
by the natives as this old and courageous friend of the Maharana
of Oodeypur, who, in his turn, was so friendly towards the natives
that the humblest of them never saw a trace of contempt in his
demeanour. He wrote before ethnology had reached its present stage
of development, but his book is still an authority on everything
concerning Rajistan. Though the author's opinion of his work was
not very high, though he stated that "it is nothing but a
conscientious collection of materials for a future historian,"
still in this book is to be found many a thing undreamed of by any
British civil servant.
Let our friends smile incredulously. Let our enemies laugh at
our pretensions to penetrate the world-mysteries of Aryavarta,"
as a certain critic recently expressed himself. However pessimistic
may be our critics' views, yet, even in the event of our conclusions
not proving more trustworthy than those of Fergusson, Wilson,
Wheeler, and the rest of the archeologists and Sanskritists who
have written about India, still, I hope, they will not be less
susceptible of proof.
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