The British and Their Rule
For making the translations and dictionaries, the British
did not have enough knowledge of our languages or of Persian & Arabic which
were used in the Muslim ruled areas. The British assumed that “words in one
language, bearing a variety of significations, are given through the medium of
words in another, having also various meanings and many directly contradictory.”
So, they “translated by words in a third, which in many significations, differed
totally from both”.(1) The British, must sure have given the
meanings they want the people of our “Good old bhAratham” should learn
in order for them to achieve their (the Europeans’) goal of colonization and Proselytization.
Proof for this can be seen in them if we go back in linguistics to before they
arrived. One such word is “God”, which they assigned to a range of words (in
the languages they encountered in the country), which represent varied range of
divinity.
The British did teach Persian and Arabic in their
educational Institutions for their would-be officials to learn. They considered
Persian as a very key language and thus paid much attention to teaching of that
language and considered it “the most prestigious and best supported” and “those
young officials who did well in Persian were frequently slated for the best
beginning jobs, which often led to lucrative and influential positions in the
central secretariat in Calcutta.” In addition, they did consider learning these
three languages equal to learning of European classical languages (Latin and
Greek), as an ‘emblem of the educated’ and that they believed can lead to ruler
ship. (2)
Also there was “considerable curiosity about the
‘religion’ of the ‘Gentoos’ among the Europeans”. There had been efforts to
learn SamskRutham, “particularly by Catholic missionaries in the
seventeenth century.” However, the study of SamskRutham turned out to be
difficult. So, they termed it as a “secret language of Brahmins”. It is seen
that “James Fraser, J. Z. Howell, and Alexander Dow had all made unsuccessful
efforts to learn Sanskrit.” And whatever knowledge “the British had of the
learning and “religious thought of” the so-called ‘Gentoos’ (Hindus) “came from
discussions with Brahmans and other high-caste Indians, or from Persian or ‘Indostan’
translations of Sanskrit texts”.(3) We can easily imagine that the knowledge
they got from these discussions and translations cannot be accurate. All they
did was again “re-present” our culture into the “forms and subjects” of their
culture; that too without having any clue what they represent and/or what the
meaning of them. Also, they did this with the help of mostly wrong translations.
But even now our own people are depending on those “half-baked” translations mostly.
The present history written mostly for establishing,
standardizing and legalizing group differentiations in the community by the Europeans
who were also missionaries, say that SamskRutham is the language of
Aryans and they brought it from Europe when the “Aryan invitation” or “immigration”
happened. This theory originated by Germans was continued by the British. We
can be sure that they did think that way, because they did write that Indian
classical language, SamskRutham, was a “secret language” invented by the
“Brahmins to be a mysterious repository for their religion and philosophy”.
They also claimed that Brahmins were Aryans. (4) This is how SamskRutham
become “Sanskrit” and a “secret language” of the “Aryan Brahmins”. Then it became
a “dead language” for Europeans as they were not successful in learning it to
the required standard. So, it was good for them to make it a dead language for
them and propagate it so it will become a dead language for a lot of our people
also. This made the introduction of “British Education System” easier. However
the original theory by Karl William Friedrich Schlegel was that the language “Sanskrit”
and the people who used that language (Germans) went from our “Good Old bhAratham”
to Europe. The theory also said that there was lot of tribes joined in this
migration and thus the ethnic diversity of Northern Europeans. They also said
that there was a second wave of migration from “Good Old bhAratham” and
they founded the civilizations of Grease and Rome. (5) Even
before that some historians did write that the Biblical Jews are from our own
ancestry. They wrote that “These Jews are
derived from the Indian philosophers; they are named by the Indians Calani."
Another historian, Clearchus of Soli wrote; "The Jews descend from the
philosophers of India. The philosophers are called in India Calanians
and in Syria Jews. The name of their capital is very difficult to
pronounce. It is called 'Jerusalem.'" And "Megasthenes, who was sent
to India by Seleucus Nicator, about three hundred years before Christ, and
whose accounts from new inquiries are every day acquiring additional credit,
says that the Jews 'were an Indian tribe or sect called Kalani...'"
(Anacalypsis, by Godfrey Higgins.) The same set of historians or at least some
of them say that the biblical “Abraham” is the Creator we refer to as “BrahMAvu”
or "BraHMa". His concert “Sarswathi” is shown as
“Sara”, Abraham’s wife. (6) That means whatever they have in the bible is from our
ancestry or a by-product of it, may be a corrupted version. They also wrote
that, this language was brought by Aryans when they invaded or migrated to our
“Good old bhAratham”. (7) If that is the case, how is it that when another group of the same Aryans
came later they did not know this language and they had to try to learn it and
even they generally failed to learn them.
For some of the westerners denigrating our culture was a
requirement as they needed to show it as inferior. However a very few did learn
some of our languages and culture in very proper way and did write and talk on
it extensively. One of them was John Z. Howell, who was a British official. He,
in his thirty years' experience as an East India Company official, had learned some
of the languages and used to allude at conferences and talks with “many of the
most learned and ingenious amongst the laity” of the west, about the greatness
of the “Tenets of the Gentoos.”(8) He also wrote
an extended account of the “Tenets of the Gentoos,” published in 1767. (9) [Note again that it is not ‘Hindus’ but
‘Gentoos’].
Before Howell, some of the European Missionaries did denigrate
our culture as “a race of stupid and gross idolaters and superstitious”.
However, in his writings Howell criticized all such his predecessors’ views
that we were “a race of stupid and gross idolaters and superstitious”. “Most of
the more recent accounts”, he argued, were by those of the “Romish Communion,”
[a Christian group] “who had a vested interest in denigrating Hindus, as they
wanted to convert them to Catholicism”.(10)
This is another proof from one of their own people that degrading and
denigrating the people of the land were with the aim of Proselytizing. This
practice still continues and the numerous stories they generate and propagate through
the media and the incidents they give undue publicity and negative alterations
do sure confuse, mislead and divide our people. The survey report published by
the Indian Express on November 29, 2014, is such a report of a survey. Such
reports, along with the ‘propaganda for demoralizing’ by denigration can and
will steer people into a state of confusion and inferiority complex. This in
turn will lead them to a stage where they feel ‘joining them may be a better
idea’. Once joined, they become more critical of what they left out of their
despair and inferiority complex and the urge to show that they are
superior.
John Z. Howell stated that “stigmatized Roman Catholic
religious tenets as more idolatrous”. He castigated most others “who had
written only on ‘exterior manners” of the customs and systems of ours only as
“casual observer or traveler” a kind of “traveler-writer”. Howell suggested,
that they should get beyond their “own ‘ignorance, superstition and partiality’
and the provincialism involved in thinking that anything ‘beyond the limits of
their native land’ was greatly inferior to their own”. (This is what most
Europeans did. They wrote superficially and that too with very limited
knowledge of our braHMavidya.) He castigated those “traveler-writer” for
writing that the people, in the “East or West-Indies, worship ‘this stick’, or ‘that
stone’, or ‘monstrous idol’; only serves to reduce in our esteem, our fellow
creatures, to the most abject and despicable point of light”. He further stated
that if they were the writers “skilled in the language of the people he
describes sufficiently to trace the etymology of their words and phrases, and
capable of diving into the mysteries of their theology; he would probably be
able to evince us, that such seemingly preposterous worship, had the most
sublime rational source and foundation.”(11) Yes it was aimed to reduce self-esteem,
demoralize and create inferiority complex in our people compared to the
westerners.
In his words, the “traveler-writer”, “who without these
essential requisites, (as well as industry and a clear understanding) pretends
to describe and fix the religious tenets of any nation, whatever dishonestly
imposes his own reveries on the world; and does the greatest injury and
violence to letters, and the cause of humanity.”(12) Here even a person, who understands that our braHMavidya
is much superior to their religion, is still under the misconceptions that braHMavidya
is only just another religion; (but sure he accepts it as a superior one). We
can see a lot of our own “religious” experts and “self-styled Swamis” also
doing the same thing. This is due to the belief that religion is the Ultimate
and most of our own people are also under this misunderstanding. This happens
because still most Indians study braHMavidya in the language of the west
and with the aid of the linguistics the Europeans created and as they “re-presented”.
Even the organizations known
collectively as “Sangha ParivAR” also have the view that it is only a
religion, “but a superior” religion. However I am of the opinion that this view
is wrong and until changed and asserted that our braHMavidya is not a
religion, but much more than a religion which is “The Science of The Absolute”;
we shall continue to be in “Spiritual Slavery” or at least we are at a great
‘Spiritual disadvantage’ as we are now. This is the reason Swami Vivekanandan declared
at Chicago on 11th September, 1893 that “I thank you in the name of the most ancient
order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of
religions.”(13) (Now “The Science of The Absolute” is
not the correct translation of braHMavidya; this is as close as it can
get, as the English language is very much inadequate to explain the ponderous
resources of braHMavidya.) Yes, it is the Mother of all religions. But
the children are very erratic and even trying very hard to denigrate, destroy
and demolish their own Mother and remove her from the face of this Universe.
It should be noted that even those who understood the
superiority of our braHMavidya is still considering it as a religion. It
is because of the ‘comparative attitude’ created by early “European Indologists”
which is still being continued by newer generations of the “European, American
and their “hired” Indian Indologists”. In my point of view “Our
spiritual heritage is not a religion. It is neither a cult; a creed, a dogma;
nor a one-way single path to heaven. It is multiple lane Super highway for mOKSham,
which is the merger of jeevAtHman with paramAThman. It is not
even just a religion as such; nor is it just a way of life. It is the complete
and comprehensive collection of divine knowledge of the Absolute Truth, which,
when learned and practiced; can lead people to the experience of the Absolute
and the Ultimate Bliss. It is a continuously evolving and absorbing science
(shAstRam); The Science of the Absolute, a flexible body of Divine knowledge
centered on the quest of the jeevAtHman (for the English speaking world,
we may refer this as ‘soul’) for its' birthright, 'the divine realization'. In
addition, it makes provisions for all jeevAtHman in this quest. Yet, it
remains immeasurable as it safeguards the very purpose of all life forms
everywhere and in all things. We may say ‘SanAthana DhaRMam’ is its quality
and/or qualification. Under no circumstances categorize it as a religion, or
just as a way of life or just as a culture. It is much Greater and Spiritual
than all of them together. The wise called it ‘The Science of Spirituality’,
‘The Science of the Absolute’, ‘The Science of the Self’ or ‘The Science of the
Soul’. It is braHMavidya. We may call it AdhyAtmavidya also, but
not a religion.”
The need of the British to learn SamskRutham had
an immediate practical necessity for a better controlling force for the governance
of the land they called India. Warren Hastings, in his writing to the Court of
Directors stated that “it would establish the Company's system of governance on
a most equitable, solid and permanent footing.” The plan was based on
“principles of experience and common observation, without the advantages which
an intimate knowledge of the theory of law might have afforded” the British. He
also stated that they “have endeavored to adapt” our ‘Regulations to the
Manners and Understandings of the People’, and the Exigencies of the Country,
adhering as closely as” they are able to our “ancient uses and Institutions.”
The other reason for learning SamskRutham was probably their “curiosity
to unlock the mysterious knowledge of the ancients.”(14)
Hasting’s theory was that “Indians should be governed by
Indian principles, particularly in relation to law. The practical question
arose as to how the British were to gain knowledge of the “ancient uses and
institutions.” He averred, that we “Had been in possession of laws which
continued unchanged, from remotest antiquity.”(15) He argued that, “the
Laws of the Koran with respect to Mahometans, [meaning Muslims] and
those of the Shaster [meaning ShAstRam/Shastra] with respect to
the ‘Gentoos’ shall be invariably adhered to.(16) Even though the
teaching of SamskRutham to the British officers was tried, it did not
succeed. So, the learning of SamskRutham to accumulate the knowledge was
almost abandoned by the British. Instead the “British Education System” was
forced on the country, through which they gained control and that control still
continues. They collected information for that ‘controlled governing’ of the
land in their own way. While doing so they did create much more divisions than
there was before, and also made the existing divisions more problematic. The
misunderstanding that our ancestors “Had been in possession of laws which
continued unchanged, from remotest antiquity” may be the reason for them to
give ManusmRithi so much of importance. Or it may have been intentional
to place the ManusmRithi in the minds of people so that misleading them was
much easier to achieve. Perhaps that is what give a very negative imprint in
the minds of our people. In fact Proliferation of smRithis did start much
earlier, from our own people who imposed lots of ill treatments of sections of
our own people by that proliferations. (17) This was even more intensified by the
false notion of untouchability. The rejection of people who were abducted, raped,
illegally married by the Muslim and Christian invaders was another ill
treatment by our own people. Lots of our own ancestors reacted by rejecting
their relatives by abandoning to the mercy of invaders. As the refusal of our
own people in not accepting them back and thus abandoning the people who went
through the inhuman treatment of foreign occupational forces made them bitter
against their own relatives and they even become more dangerous than the
invading forces. (18)
Bibliography
1.
(i) Letter from
William Davy to John Richardson, dated 8 March 1780, in John Richardson, A
Dictionary, English, Persian and Arabic (Oxford, 1780). (ii) Colonialism and
its forms of knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, Page 23.
2.
Colonialism and
its forms of knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, Page 24, 25.
3.
Colonialism and
its forms of knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, Page 25.
4.
Alexander Dow, “A
Dissertation Concerning the Customs, Manners, Language, Religion and Philosophy
of the Hindoos,” in The History of Hindostan, 3rd ed. (London, 1792), l:xxvii;
reprinted with a commentary in Peter Marshall, ed., The British Discovery of
Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 107-39.
5.
Breaking India by Rajiv Malhotra INVENTING THE ARYAN RACE Page 19, 20
and The Language and Wisdom of the
Indians, by Karl
Wilbelm Friedrich Schlegel
6.
(i) History of the Jews, the Jewish scholar and theologian Flavius Josephus
(37 - 100 A.D.), (Book I:22.) (ii)
Anacalypsis, by Godfrey Higgins, Vol. I; p. 400.) (iii) Martin Haug,
Ph.D., The Sacred Language, Writings, and Religions of the Parsis, Page 16. (iv) http://viewzone.com/abrahamx.html
7.
Breaking India by Rajiv Malhotra INVENTING THE ARYAN RACE Page 19, 20
and Karl Wilbelm Friedrich Schlegel - 1860.
8.
Marshall, British
Discovery, p. 46 - notes (a) and (b). and Colonialism and its forms of
knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, Page 25.
9.
Interesting Historical
Events Relative to the province of Bengal and the Empire of Indostan, By John
Z. Howell, (London. 1767). And Colonialism and its forms of knowledge by
Bernard S. Cohn, Page 25.
10. Colonialism and its forms of knowledge by Bernard S.
Cohn, Page 25 and 26.
11. Colonialism and its forms of knowledge by Bernard S.
Cohn, Page 25 and 26.
12. Marshall, British Discovery, p. reprinted ibid., page. 48-50. And Colonialism and its forms of knowledge by
Bernard S. Cohn, Page 26.
13.
The Complete Works of Swami
Vivekananda Volume 1, Page 3.
14. Letter from the Governor-General and Council to Court
of Directors, Fort William, 3 November 1772, printed In Great Britain. House of
Commons, Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, 4: East Indies,
1772-3 (reprinted London, 1804):345-46.
15. George R. Gleig, comp., Memoirs of the Life of the
Right Honourable Warren Hastings (London. 1841), 1:400.
16. (i) Colonialism and its forms of knowledge by Bernard
S. Cohn, Page 26, (ii) Reports from Committees of the House of Commons . .. 1772-34;348-50.
Page 348 (3.1) (iii) J. D. M. Derrett,
“Sanskrit Legal Treatises Compiled at the Instance of the British,” Zeitchrift
fur Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft 63 (1961):72-117; idem, “The
Administration of Hindu Law by the British,” Comparative Studies in Society and
History 4 (1961):10-52; idem, Religion, Law and the State in India (London,
1968); (iv) Marc Galanter, “The Displacement of Traditional Law in Modem India,” Journal of Social Issues 24
(1968):65-91; (v) Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, “Barristers and Brahmans in India:
Legal Cultures and Social Change,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 8
(1965):24-49; (vi) Ludo Rocher, “Indian Reactions to Anglo-Indian Law,” Journal
of the American Oriental Society 92 (1972):419-24.
17.
ഭാരതചരിത്രത്തിലെ ആറു സുവർണ്ണഹഘട്ടങ്ങൾ, അദ്ധ്യായം 9 വിനായൿ ദാമോദർ സവാർക്കർ.
18.
ഭാരതചരിത്രത്തിലെ ആറു സുവർണ്ണഹഘട്ടങ്ങൾ, അദ്ധ്യായം 11, വിനായൿ ദാമോദർ സവാർക്കർ.
(Will continue; Copyright
© Udayabhanu Panickar)
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ഒരു അഭിപ്രായം പോസ്റ്റ് ചെയ്യൂ