He Affirms That He Who Seriously
Considers These Legends Will Very Soon Become Thoroughly Convinced
That All These So-Called
"Fables" are founded on historical facts,
by the actual existence of the descendants of the heroes, by tribes,
ancient towns,
And coins still extant; that to acquire the right
to pronounce a final opinion one must read first the inscriptions
on the Inda-Prestha pillars of Purag and Mevar, on the rocks of
Junagur, in Bijoli, on Aravuli and on all the ancient Jaina temples
scattered throughout India, where are to be found numerous
inscriptions in a language utterly unknown, in comparison with
which the hieroglyphs will seem a mere toy.
Yet, nevertheless, Professor Max Muller, who, as already mentioned,
was never in India, sits as a judge and corrects chronological
tables as is his wont, and Europe, taking his words for those of an
oracle, endorses his decisions. Et c'est ainsi que s'ecrit l'histoire.
Talking of the venerable German Sanskritist's chronology, I cannot
resist the desire to show, be it only to Russia, on what a fragile
basis are founded his scientific discussions, and how little he
is to be trusted when he pronounces upon the antiquity of this
or that manuscript. These pages are of a superficial and descriptive
nature, and, as such, make no pretense to profound learning, so that
what follows may seem incongruous. But it must be remembered that
in Russia, as elsewhere in Europe, people estimate the value of
this philological light by the points of exclamation lavished upon
him by his admiring followers, and that no one reads the Veda
Bhashaya of Swami Dayanand. It may even be that I shall not be
far from the truth in saying that the very existence of this work
is ignored, which may perhaps be a fortunate fact for the reputation
of Professor Max Muller. I shall be as brief as possible. When
Professor Max Muller states, in his Sahitya-Grantha, that the Aryan
tribe in India acquired the notion of God step by step and very
slowly, he evidently wishes to prove that the Vedas are far from
being as old as is supposed by some of his colleagues. Having
presented, in due course, some more or less valuable evidence to
prove the truth of this new theory, he ends with a fact which, in
his opinion, is indisputable. He points to the word hiranya-garbha
in the mantrams, which he translates by the word "gold," and adds
that, as the part of the Vedas called chanda appeared 3,100 years ago,
the part called mantrams could not have been written earlier than
2,900 years ago. Let me remind the reader that the Vedas are divided
into two parts: chandas - slokas, verses, etc.; and mantrams -
prayers and rhythmical hymns, which are, at the same time, incantations
used in white magic. Professor Max Muller divides the mantram ("Agnihi
Poorwebhihi," etc.) philologically and chronologically, and, finding
in it the word hiranya-garbha, he denounces it as an anachronism.
The ancients, he says, had no knowledge of gold, and, therefore,
if gold is mentioned in this mantram it means that the mantram was
composed at a comparatively modern epoch, and so on.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 54 of 187
Words from 27582 to 28116
of 96531
