Some of the intellectual
celebraties in the world of the
West and the East had the following things
to say about Hinduism:
Some of the intellectual
celebraties in the world of the
West and the East had the following things
to say about Hinduism:
"African religions and Hinduism have certain similarities. Traditional African religions recognize the many aspects of Brahman and worship God as Prithivi, Vayu, Varuna, Agni, etc., just as in Hinduism. Only Africans who have been exposed to Hinduism can appreciate these similarities which help them to better understand African beliefs and aspirations."
"I was searching for the truth. I went through some books on yoga and discovered that Hinduism is a very good religion. It is open minded. It teaches you about God. It also teaches you about science of the soul. Later I went to Rishikesh and stayed with Sivananda's ashram, the Divine Life Society. There I found that Hinduism is a straightforward religion that revealed the truth.
I believe that Hinduism will grow with time among both Indians and Africans. It is now time for India and Hindu masters to turn their attention to Africa, with swamis and brahmins coming to conduct workshops, etc., and thereby give Africa a chance to remove the veil of spiritual darkness that has given Africa the name "the dark continent."
(source: Hinduism Today - August 1998 and July/August/September 2003 p. 63)
281. Herbert George H.
G. Wells (1866 -1946) historian, a bitter critic of the Roman Catholic
Church and author of several books including A Short History of the World
and Crux Ansata: An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church and
The Time Machine.
In Hinduism, tolerance
is not simply a matter of policy but an article of faith. He say that Hindu
kings actually welcomed with open arms Christian missionaries and Muslim fakirs and Buddhist
monks for a free exchange of ideas. One great Hindu king, Ashoka, in fact
changed his religion to Buddhism and propagated Buddhism throughout India.
(source: Am I a Hindu - by Ed Viswanathan p. 8).
H. G. Wells
has remarked: "The history of India for many centuries had been
happier, less fierce, and more dreamlike than any other history. In these
favorable conditions, they built a character - meditative and peaceful and a
" nation of philosophers such as could nowhere have existed except in India."(source: The Outline of History - By H. G. Wells p. 855)
282. M. J. Akbar
Indian journalist and editor of Asian age and author of The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict Between Islam and
Christianity writes:
"Hinduism
has a supernatural aspect, which involves faith in an afterlife; and a natural
one, which guides the worldly behavior. If Hinduism has a defining message, then it is humanism. There is space in its philosophy for everyone, which is one reason why India is a home to every single religion in the world. Anyone who has been persecuted anywhere else has found an undisturbed haven in India. This remained true even when men distorted the philosophy of Hinduism and introduced the inequities of caste: The attitude of Hinduism to other faiths continued to be liberal. Hinduism is synonymous with humanism. That is its essence and its great liberating quality."
(source: Of human bondage
- arabnews.com)
283. Andrew Harvey (1952
- ) has devoted hi life to studying the world's mystical traditions. He
is the author of several books including The Direct Path creating a journey
to the divine through the world's mystical traditions. "The Sanatana Dharma is a gallimaufry of the most extravagantly varied faiths, rituals, customs, beliefs; Hinduism has no single dogmatic authority and, until very recently in its history, no "missionary zeal" to convert others, sine it has never seen itself as the one true religion or the only hope of salvation.
"While there is no one 'exclusive' dogmatic Hindu tradition, then, there is a very definitely, a spirit of inquiry and of revelation that is so consistent with the greatest of modern Hindu mystics, Ramana Maharshi...down the Upanishads more than two thousand years before him. It is this consistency that gives the Hindu mystical tradition its timeless purity, weight, and grandeur. "
"What, then, is the core truth of the Hindu tradition? It is the truth of the mystery of a Spirit that pervades, creates, and transcends all things and of each soul's conscious identity with it beyond space and time. In the Upanishads, this all-pervading, all-creating, all-transcending Spirit is named Brahman. For the Upanishads and all the later teachings rooted in them, every human being is naturally one with Brahman in his or her Atman, his or her "soul" or "indwelling core of divine consciousness." The aim of human life and the source of liberation from all the chains of life and death is to know, from inmost experience, the Atman's identity with Brahman and to live the calm, fearless, selflessly loving life that radiates from this knowledge."
"It is its sublime ancient tolerance, that was the true proof of the wisdom and mature dignity of the Hindu tradition. While there is no one "exclusive" dogmatic Hindu tradition, then, there is very definitely, a spirit of inquiry and of revelation that is so consistent that we find one of the greatest of modern Hindu mystics, Raman Maharishi, speaking in ways and with images that echo exactly the terminology of the anonymous seers who wrote down the Upanishads more than two thousand years before him. It is this consistency that gives the Hindu mystical tradition its timeless purity, weight, and grandeur. It is as if one eternal voice is speaking in and through a myriad different voice tirelessly exploring different registers of its own majestic range, as if all the tradition's poems and meditations and philosophical texts are, in Zaehner words, "different-shaped peaks in one vast, grand, interconnected mountain chain, like the Himalayas."
"The Hindu tradition provides exquisite, firm guidance toward this attunement because it has always recognized that different temperaments take different paths into the Sacred Marriage. It has not only recognized the validity of other religions, but has also acknowledged within itself a variety of paths." No other mystical tradition has had so broad and wise and all-embracing a vision of the different aspects and faces of the path. As Robin Zaehner used to say, "If anyone feels excluded from the Hindu embrace it is by his or her own perverse choice."
"Perhaps the supreme gift of Hinduism to the world is that its Tantric traditions have kept the truth of the splendor, majesty and power of the Bride vibrant and alive in all her unbridled fullness. Worshipping Her as Devi, Ambika, Durga, Lakshmi or Kali, the Hindu Tantric mystics have known how to adore Her both as Queen of Transcendence and Earth Mother, and love Her both in Her terrifying, life-devouring aspects and as infinitely benign and tender."
(source: Teachings of Hindu Mystics - By Andrew Harvey p. xv - xxix).
284. General Joseph Davey Cunningham (1812-1851) author of A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej says:
"Mathematical
science was so perfect and astronomical observations so complete that the paths
of the sun and the moon were accurately measured. The philosophy of the
learned few was perhaps for the first time, firmly allied with the theology of
the believing many, and Brahmanism laid down as articles of faith the unity of
God, the creation of the world, the immortality of the soul, and the
responsibility of man. The remote dwellers upon the Ganga distinctly made known
that future life about which Moses is silent or obscure, and that unity and
Omnipotence of the Creator which were unknown to the polytheism of the Greek
and Roman multitude, and to the dualism of Mithraic legislators, while Vyasa
perhaps surpassed Plato in keeping the people tremblingly alive to the
punishment which awaited evil deeds."
(source: History of the Sikhs - By Joseph Davey Cunningham).
285. H. T.
Goldich ( ? ) writes:
“No river on the
surface of the globe, can compare with the Ganga in sanctity. From her source
to her outflow in the Bay of Bengal, every yard of the river is sacred. To
bathe in the Ganga at stated festivals is to wash away sin; to die and cremated
on the river bank is to attain eternal peace. Tracing magnificent curves
through the flat lowlands, the four rivers – Ganga, Jumna, Gogra and Gandaki –
have for centuries combined to form an over-ruling factor in the development of
Indian races.”
Below the Rajmahal
hills, the flood-discharge amounts to a million and a half cubic feet per
second. Nearly every vegetable product which feeds and clothes, a people, or
enables them to trade with foreign countries, is to be found in its basin. Upon
its banks, in the present day, are such centers of wealth as Calcutta, Patna,
Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore – with Agra and Delhi on its affluent Jumna.
“There is not a river in the world which has influenced humanity or contributed
to the growth of material civilization or of social ethics, to such an extent
as the Ganga. The wealth of India has been concentrated in her valley; and
beneath the shade of trees, whose roots have been nourished on her waters, the
profoundest doctrines of moral philosophy have been conceived to be promulgated
afar for the guidance of the world.”
(source: Imperial
Gazetteer of India – The Clarendon Press. Oxford. I 22-26 and Our Heritage and Its Significance - By Shripad Rama Sharma p.
16-17)
286. Dhan Gopal
Mukerji (1890 -1936) was the first South Asian immigrant to the United
States to carve out a successful literary career, publishing more than twenty
books Caste and Outcast was the first book on India written by an Indian
that was widely read in America. As an interpreter of Indian thought and
spirituality, Mukerji's influence on American literary circles was
considerable. Among his long-time literary associates were the eminent critic
Van Wyck Brooks and the historians Will and Ariel Durant. Mukerji's opus was an
integral part of a far-flung intellectual effort in the early twentieth century
that seriously studied Indian civilization and drew upon it for inspiration
and direction. Those involved included such figures as T. S. Eliot,
Theodore Dreiser, Eugene O'Neill, Lewis Mumford, Luther Burbank and A. J. Liebling.
The book won high critical acclaim: Saturday Evening Post reviewed it as "the most important and inspiring book that has appeared in America since the war." Its theme is the contrast between Hinduism's pervasive spirituality and tolerance and the Western world's materialism and religious dogmas. Mukerji proposes that the West should learn "repose and meditation" from India, and India should learn the value of "activity and science" from the West. In Caste and Outcast, Mukerji depicts India as a tolerant Hindu civilization.
He illustrates Hinduism's tolerance with numerous narratives. An example: As a child, Mukerji brings home a picture of Christ given to him by his Christian teacher in the missionary school with the admonition to get rid of false Hindu gods and instead worship the only true god, Christ. Mukerji's mother places the picture of Christ next to Vishnu's and says, "God is one. We have given him many names. Why should we quarrel about names?" She burns incense and meditates before the images of Christ and Vishnu."
He talks about the role of Art in Hinduism. "According to the Shilpa Sastras, in which the symbolic art of India has been thoroughly explained, certain rules have been laid down for the guidance of artists. One of these is that the novice should not be taught the technique for the asking. He must meditate, and find within himself a vision that clamors for expression, and only then may his masters instruct him in technique
In India, all our art
is ritualistic, especially the art of the temples and the caves. When I went to
the cave temples, to Elephanta or Ellora, I found mountains hollowed out, and
temples built underneath them. The columns supporting the roof resembled
elephant legs, and the ceilings and the walls were gorgeously decorated with
the sculptured forms of human beings and of gods. About 200 B.C, or earlier, a
groups of monks went to meditate under the rocks of Ajanta. In meditation they
experienced ecstasy, and having experienced it, they carved it on the wall. The
story of all the gods of India is carved on these walls, and the youngest of
them all is Buddha. Seven hundred years of Indian history is written out in
these caves covering vastness with terrific forms.
I shall never forget
my first visit to Ellora, reached after two days tramp from the nearest town. When
the sages of southern India wanted to create an image of the universe, they
went to Ellora. They worked for one hundred and fifty years and used up
generations of artists. They carved a mountain into galleries, and as these
rose higher and higher, they gradually attained the summit, and the whole
mountain was covered as the Himalayas are covered with strange life."
The
"Outcast" in the title refers primarily to Mukerji's experience in
America as a newly arrived, penniless Indian student at the University of
California, Berkeley, where he suffered from racial discrimination - the Indian
students were routinely refused service in the campus restaurants.
(source: Caste and Outcast - By Dhan Gopal Mukerji p. 110 -120).
For more on D G Mukerji refer to IndiaStar Review).
287. Haven O'More, a scholar at the University of Chicago and author of several books, including Butoh : Dance of the Dark Soul and Sacrificial Bone Inscriptions, has written:
"Greater than any mountain, the Mahabharata sits supreme...."
(source: Nostradamus and Beyond: Visions of Yuga-Sandhi - By N S Rajaram p. 41).
288.Yann Martel (1963 - ) a Canadian who won this year's Booker Prize for Life of Pi thinks:
''Hinduism -- is a very open religion. It can lend itself to so much,''
Martel claims he has always loved India. ''India is all lives in one place, India is all emotions in one place. It's an extra - ordinary, dazzling place, it's all the wonder and horror of life.''
According to him, India stokes the fires of creativity. ''There are stories that can be told only in India. There are things that are possible in India that are not possible anywhere else.'' ''It's a country that dazzles me because it is all of life. I truly think that in some ways, India is the richest place on earth.''
(source: India is the richest place on earth: Booker winner- sify.com).
289. Sir Henry James Summer Maine (1822-1888) His first work, Ancient Law was his most famous. He was (1862-69) legal member of the viceroy's council in India, where he planned the codification of Indian law.
This eminent Jurist has shown that the old Brehon laws of Ireland are derived from Vedic laws of India.
(source: The Vision of India - By Sisirkumar Mitra p. 208).
Sir Henry Maine, a
former Vice Chancellor of Calcutta university and an advisor to the Viceroy
echoed the sentiment of many Englishmen when he said: "A nation has
been born out of Sanskrit."
290. E. M.
Plunkett ( ? ) writes in his book Ancient Calendars and Constellations:
"The opinion of the Greek writers at the beginning of the Christian era may be quoted as showing the high estimation in which Indian astronomy was held. In the Life of Appollonius of Tyana, the Greek philosopher and astrologer, written by Philostratus about 210 CE, the wisdom and learning of Appollonius are set high above his contemporaries because he had studied astronomy and astrology with the sages of India."
(source: Antiquity of Indian Astrology).
291. James Prinsep (1799-1840) an employee of the East India Company, deciphered the Brahmi script in 1883 and author of Essays on Indian antiquities, historic, numismatic, and palaeæographic of the late James Prinsep, is recorded to have observed that:
"Greek was nothing more than Sanskrit turned topsy-turvy."
"The fact, however, that he (Pythagoras) derived his doctrines from an Indian source is very generally admitted. Under the name of Mythraic, the faith of Buddha had also a wide extension."
(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 280 - 281).
292. William Enfield (1741-1797) ) was an influential dissenting theologian and tutor at Warrington Academy. His History is a translation of Johann Jakob Brucker's "Historia Critica Philosophiae (first published in six volumes in 1742--67), the most significant and scholarly history of philosophy of the pre-Kantian era. He has written:
"We find that it (India) was visited for the purpose of acquiring knowledge by Pythagoras, Anaxarchus, Pyrrho, and others who afterwards became eminent philosophers in Greece."
(source: History of Philosophy - By William Enfield Vol. I p. 65)
293. Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881) Scottish-born English historian and essayist who was leading figure in the Victorian era.
He was a historian, novelist and essayist who exerted a huge influence over the Victorian age. His major works are the satirical novel Sartor Resartus (1833-4) The French Revolution (1837) and the lecture-series On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (1841).
The Vedantic note in Carlyle's writings is too well known to require mention. And the Gita was the only book he chose to present to Ralph Waldo Emerson when the latter met him for the first time.
(source: The Vision of India - By Sisirkumar Mitra p. 204).
Thomas Carlyle, in
Sartor Resartus exclaims:
“Detached, separated!
I say that there is no such separation, nothing hitherto was ever stranded,
cast aside; ….The withered leaf is not dead and lost, there are Forces in it
and around it, though working in inverse order, else how could it rot?…Rightly
viewed no meanest object is insignificant: all objects are as windows, through
which the philosophies eye look into infinitude itself.”
In the last lines he
rises to passionate heights in his assertion of the same theory which
fascinated the first Hindu thinkers.
(source: Indian
Philosophy and Modern Culture - By Paul Brunton p. 33 - 35 London Rider
& Co. Paternoster House, E. C)
294. Sardar Kavalam
Madhava Panikkar (1896-1963) Indian scholar, journalist, historian from
Kerala, administrator, diplomat, Minister in Patiala Bikaner and Ambassador to
China, Egypt and France. Cambridge historian Arthur Hassall (1853 - 1930) wrote that in his “long
career as tutor of history at Christ Church ” he had “never had a more
brilliant student”. Author of several books, including Asia and Western Dominance, India Through the ages and India and the Indian Ocean.
He has succinctly summed up the basic tenets of Hinduism, which show that the Divine for the Hindu is a family phenomenon and not a distant Truth.
He says:
"The Hindu
believe in one God, conceived as the universal soul or Paramatma, the absolute
and eternal, beyond the categories of thought and expression, and embracing the
entire universe. The text - there is only One, the learned speak of it in many
ways. Though the Paramatma is impersonal or without qualities in itself in
relation to the world expressed in terms of the relative, it is personal and
man's mind conceives it as having qualities and form. This leads to the
doctrine of Ishta Devata, or God, as conceived according to one's preference,
as father, mother, guru, lover or even friend. The One Supreme thus assumes for
the devotee the qualities and form in which he likes to worship. Many who
worship the Supreme as Krishna think of him as a playful child, others as the
great guru. In the same way, God is conceived by others as the Divine Mother.
It is this doctrine of Ishta Devata, the freedom given to every one to worship
God with the attributes of his own choice, never however forgetting that the
Supreme has no qualities, that has led to the misconception that Hinduism is
polytheistic. In a sense, it is true that there can be as many forms of Godhead
in Hinduism as there are believers, for each one can conceive God only as the
limitations of his own mind permit him."
(source: Hinduism:
Its Contribution to Science and Civilization- By Prabhakar Machwe p.
114-115)
295. Joseph Needham (1900-1995)
is famous mainly for the formidable magnitude and scholarship of his work on
science in China. He impressed by the achievements of India in the field
of knowledge and learning. He comments on the Indian fascination with perpetual motion, 'to seek the ultimate origin or predisposition of the Indian conviction in the profoundly Hindu world view of endless cyclical change, kalpa and mahakalpas succeeding one another in self-sufficient and unwearying round. For Hindus as well as Taoists, the universe itself was a perpetual motion machine."
(source: The Speaking Tree: A Study of Indian Culture and Society - By Richard Lannoy p. 292).
In his lecture to the students of Cambridge University in 1963 he gave full compliments to India's intellectual heritage. He said, 'it is good to remember, therefore, that our own pious founders were not the only men, and that Christendom was not the only culture, to set on foot great and noble institutions of learning where successive generations of students assembled to get the benefits of education and research. When the men of Alexander the Great came to Taxila in India in the fourth century BC they found a university the like of which had not then been seen in Greece… and was still existing when the Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hsien went there about AD 400.
(source: infinityfoundation.com).
"....Indian culture in all probability excelled in systematic thought about Nature (as for example in the Samkhya atomic theories of Kshana, bhutadim paramanu,etc.), including also biological speculations...When the balance comes to be made up, it will be found I believe, that Indian scientific history holds as many brilliant surprises....."
(source: Homo Faber: Technology and Culture in India, China and the West 1500-1972 - by Claude Alphonso Alvares p. 69 - 70).
296. Stephen Knapp (Sri Nandanandana Dasa) ( ? ) American born author of several books including The Secret Teachings of the Vedas : The Eastern Answers to the Mysteries of Life and Proof of Vedic Culture's Global Existence.
He has observed the following about the total freedom in Hinduism:
"One of the unique things about Vedic philosophy is that within the many texts it contains, it deals with all varieties of viewpoints, from impersonalistic atheism, outright materialism, to loving devotion to God. And you have room to discover and realize the knowledge at your own rate, whether it be many months, many years, or even lifetimes. In other words, you may at first be an impersonalist persuasion and believe that the Supreme is only a great unembodied force. Or you might believe that God is a person. Or you may worship Durga, Ganesh, Shiva, Vishnu or Krishna, and still be considered on the Vedic path, though on different parts of the path. But this is the sort of freedom and opportunity you have in the Vedic philosophy for your growth and development. However, we find that in other religions, such as Christianity and Islam, if you question or doubt the local scriptures or authorities, or argue different points of view, or look for answers from another religion, your faith will be questioned, you may be called a heretic, and you may even be excommunicated from the Church, which is supposed to equate with eternal damnation. This is obviously a very closed minded discipline to work in compared to the freedom of Vedic system. After all, what kind of God would make a system in which you have only one life to live and only one chance to discover how to attain Him, and then follow all the scriptural demands and requirements or face eternal damnation?
"In fact, history shows that the three traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have, in their monotheistic theology developed patterns and traits of prejudice, intolerance, violence and war against all other religions and cultures. In fact, the history of these three religions show that they have spread primarily because of political intolerance for other religions, militant zeal, and through fear of persecution, rather than by spiritual purity. Hinduism, on the other hand, has not spread on the basis of fear, whether that fear be of political persecution or fear of a wrathful God. "
"The Vedic philosophy contains the oldest spiritual texts of any religion in the world, and its more advanced concepts can be difficult for event the greatest scholars of the West to fathom."
(source: The Universal Path to Enlightenment - By Stephen Kanpp preface vi-viii and 4).
"The Vedas are not new to the Western world. There have been seekers, writers, poets, philosophers, and people of all levels who have appreciated the depth, inspiration, and insight of Vedic thought for many years."
(source: The Secret Teachings of the Vedas - By Stephen Knapp p. 31 and http://www.stephen-knapp.com/).
297. Shri Jagmohan ( ? ) Union Minister of Tourism and Culture of India has recently observed:
"The hallmark of India has been the power of its mind. It was this power of mind which found expression in its pre-eminent philosophy, religion, culture and way of life.
One of the finest pieces of evidence which shows how powerful and insightful was once the Indian mind was its clear and correct understanding of the pattern of human existence on this planet and beyond. It perceived the “non-dual reality” that lies behind the smoke-screen of “surface duality” and realized that the universe was an organic web in which every item of life and nature was inextricably enmeshed with every other item. It also understood that this web was permeated with a cosmic force of which man and nature are the constituents as well as the contributors.
This deep perception, this great realization and this subtle understanding of the Indian mind so impressed the renowned American poet and philosopher, Emerson, that he wrote a beautiful poem, titled “Brahma”, in which he gave expression to the concept of non-duality. Clearly, what the Indian mind discovered, centuries earlier, by virtue of its perceptive power and its higher level of consciousness, was discovered by the modern science only recently. The profundity of the concepts of the universe being an organic web, as evolved by the Indian mind, in the heydays of its power, can best be brought
The Indian mind was the earliest to grasp the significance of maintaining the ecological balance. From time immemorial, our sages and saints have been propagating: “The Earth is our Mother and we are its Children.” One of the earliest Vedic hymns, composed over 4,000 years ago, gave the message of what is now termed as sustainable development: “Whatever I dig of you, O Earth,\ May you of that have quick replenishment!\ O Purifying One, may my thrust never\ Reach right unto your vital points, your heart!”
(source: Power of the Indian mind: our heritage & asset - by Jagmohan - tribuneindia.com - editorial Sunday February 23 2003).
298. L S S O'Malley ( ?) author of Popular Hinduism writes about Hindu Literature as giving help to a sense of moral value and to maintain a healthy ethical standard. The two great epics, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, are a means of moral education for millions, teaching moral lessons in concrete terms and illustrating in the lives of heroes and heroines such virtues as truth, love, fidelity, courage and calm resignation.
"Besides giving examples of noble lives, the literature of the Hindus is full of lines announcing moral truths and inculcating virtue. In the Ramayana Rama, who is himself a pattern of loyal truthfulness, declares: "Truth is lord in the world; virtue always rests on truth.
The Mahabharata has been described as an encyclopedia of moral teaching, the nature of which may perhaps be judged from a few extracts. "The sum of true righteousness is to treat others as you yourself would be treated. Do nothing to your neighbor that you would not have your neighbor do to you hereafter." "It is the constant duty of the good to injure no one by thought, word or deed, to give to others and to be kind to all." "High minded men delight in doing good without thought of their own interest. when they confer a benefit on others, they do not count on favors in return." "Fasts, ablutions and austerities are all in vain unless the soul is pure." "Overcome the wicked by goodness."
' The complexity of Hinduism is so great, the forms which it assumes so protean, that it defies precise definition. It is a composite religion made up of many conflicting elements.... It allows the greatest possible freedom of thought as apart from practice, as is admitted by Hindu scholars."
Hinduism has a highly spiritual side and contains many sublime conceptions."
(source: Popular Hinduism - L S S O'Malley p. 81- 86)
299. Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832) British writer and Philosopher. He was trained as a physician, but after settling in London he became a writer and lawyer. He served as recorder of Bombay (1804-6) and judge in Bombay vice-admiralty court (1806-12). He called:
"the theory (propounded by Vedanta) refined, abstruse, ingenious and beautiful."
(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 297).
300. Gustav Holst (1874 - 1934) composer of S¯avitri ; The dream-city, Choral hymns from the Rig Veda and S¯avitri; an episode from the Mah¯abharata, Op. 25 He was Vaughan Williams’ greatest friends. Despite his German name, Holst was born in Cheltenham in 1874. Holst’s music as exploring ‘mystical regions’
Conventional religion did not interest Holst, and he felt himself drawn towards Hinduism. He believed in the concept of Dharma and the idea of life after death, and this eastern influence also led to his love of astrology. Holst’s beliefs are revealed in a letter to a friend : -
‘…everything in this world – is just one big miracle. Or rather, the universe itself is one.’
He conceived as well a passion for Wagner, whose style looms large in Hoist's apprentice works, and an interest in Hindu philosophy and literature. The most notable of many works springing from Holst's preoccupation with Hinduism was the chamber opera Savitri dating from 1908, based on an episode from the epic poem Mahabharata: its economy and intensity are exemplified in the arresting and dramatic opening, where Death sings, offstage and unaccompanied
This English composer composed operas about Sita and Savitri and other works based on Hindu themes. It was in 1895 that Holst first became interested in Hindu philosophy and Sanskrit literature. His immediate impulse was to set some hymns from the Rig Veda, the most important of the Hindu scriptures, to music. Finding the English translations he discovered were hopelessly stilted, Holst decided to learn Sanskrit so that he could translate the words to his own satisfaction. in doing so, he opened an entirely new world for himself.
Holst began work in an opera, Sita, in 1899. It is based in the Hindu epic Ramayana. He worked on it, on and off, until 1906. Although it was never performed in his lifetime, he learned a great deal from it . In 1903 he also wrote a symphonic poem titled Indra, which was a vivid portrait of the god, Indra, and his battle with the drought.
At home in England again, a reinvigorated Holst began working on another Indian opera which he called, Savitri. This was a much smaller work only lasting a little over thirty minutes. The music was written for three soloists, a small hidden chorus, and a chamber orchestra. During this time, Gustav was at the height of his interest in setting Sanskrit texts. From 1908 to 1912, he wrote four sets of hymns from the Rig Veda, the Vedic Hymns for voice and piano, and the large scale choral work called The Cloud Messenger.
(source: http://hem.passagen.se/alkerstj/worldofclassicalmusic/early20th/gustav_holst.html and http://wso.williams.edu/~ktaylor/gholst/). For more refer to chapter on Hindu Music)
301. Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) founder of the Christian Science Movement. She published Science and Health With a Key to the Scriptures in 1875. She had imbibed some of the teachings of the New England Transcendentalists (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amos Bronson Alcott and Henry D. Thoreau) who made their influence widely felt through books, magazines and newspaper articles.
"Christian Science founded in the little town of Lyn, MA in 1815 by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. Yet when we read in texts of Science and Health up to the 33rd edition there are quotations from the sacred Hindu text The Bhagavad Gita, as well as allusions by Mrs. Eddy to Hindu philosophy. These were omitted in later editions, causing modern-day Christian Scientists to be unaware that their founder gleaned from Hindu philosophy."
"There was a similarity between Advaita Vedanta Hinduism and Mrs. Eddy's view of God and the material world. She makes reference to Bhagavad Gita in page 259 of the 33rd edition.
Swami Yogananda in his
East-West magazine for the issue of May-June 1926 in his article “Christian
Science and Hindu Philosophy contends that in older editions, the Christian
Science Church has drawn a lot from Hindu philosophy. The current editions of
Science and Health contain no Hindu references, to Hindu teachings are quite
clear and distinct. Says Yogananda:
“It may be of much
interest to many Christian Scientists to learn that the great founder of their
faith, Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, was a student of the Hindu scriptures. This fact is shown by
her quotations from them in her Science and Health up to the 33rd
edition. We find in this edition the following excerpts from Sir Edwin Arnold’s
translation of Bhagavad Gita:
“Never the Spirit was
born; the Spirit shall cease to be never;
Never the time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!
Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the Spirit forever;
Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!”
Never the time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!
Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the Spirit forever;
Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!”
Again Mrs. Eddy makes
reference in the same chapter to another translation of Bhagavad Gita. On page
259 of the 33rd edition , she says:
"The ancient
Hindu philosophers understood something of this Principle, when they said in
their Celestial Song, according to an old prose translation:
“The wise neither
grieve for the dead nor for the living. I myself never was not,nor thous, nor
all the princes of the earth; nor shall we ever hereafter cease to be. As the
soul, in this mortal frame, findeth infancy, youth and old age, so in some
future frame will it find the like. One who is confirmed in this belief is not
disturbed by anything that may come to pass. The sensibility of the faculties
giveth heat and cold, pleasure and pain, which come and go and are transient
and inconstant. Beat them with patience; for the wise man, whom these disturb
not, and to whom pain and pleasure are the same, is formed for immortality.”
Both these
quotations from the Bhagavad Gita, or Song Celestial, which contains the
essence of the Vedas or the Hindu Bible, are to be found in Mrs. Eddy's 7th
chapter on "Imposition and Demonstration." This whole
chapter has been omitted from later editions of Science and Health. That
is why many Christian scientists are not aware that their great leader Mrs.
Eddy was familiar with Hindu thought, and in her bigness did not hesitate to
acknowledge it in print..." "It seems clear also that Christian Science has certain historical connections with Hinduism through Mrs. Eddy's use of the Gita, through the New England Transcendentalism, and through the very indirect influence of a certain Hindu view of Phineas Parker Quimby (1802- 1866)."
Yet when we read this Christian Science Bible we find that it out-Sankara Sankara with its doctrine of cosmic illusion.
Mrs. Eddy must have imbibed some of the teachings of the New England Transcendentalists who made their influence widely felt through books, magazines and newspaper articles. Bronson Alcott, who was one of them attended her services. Now most of the Transcendentalists, like Emerson, Alcott and Thoreau, were profoundly influenced by Hinduism, with its spiritual breath and tolerance and unity.
(source: Hinduism Invades America - By Wendell Thomas p. 229 - 233 published by The Beacon Press Inc. New York City 1930). For more on Wendell Thomas refer to chapter GlimpsesVI).
(Note: D P Singhal, Indian historian, has observed: "The Christian Science movement in America was possibly influenced by India. The founder of this movement, Mary Baker Eddy, in common with the Vedantins, believed that matter and suffering were unreal, and that a full realization of this fact was essential for relief from ills and pains. In Science and Health she asserts: “Christian Science explains all cause and effect as mental, not physical. It lifts the veil of mystery from Soul and body. It shows the scientific relation of man to God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities of being, and sets free the imprisoned thought. In divine Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmonious, and eternal. Science shows that what is termed matter is but the subjective state of what is termed by the author mortal mind. The Christian Science doctrine has naturally been given a Christian framework, but the echoes of Vedanta in its literature are often striking."
(source: India and World Civilization - By D. P. Singhal Pan Macmillan Limited. 1993 .Part II p. 256).
302. Emile Burnof (1821-1907) author of La science des religions and Dictionnaire classique sanscrit-français and Essai sur le Veda, ou Introduction a la connaisance de l'Inde says:
The Bhagavad Gita was "probably the most beautiful book which has ever come from the hand of man."
(source: The Fragrance of India - By Louis Revel p. 163)
303. Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888) writer, philosopher, schoolteacher, visionary. Born in 1799 to an illiterate flax farmer in Wolcott, Connecticut, Amos Bronson Alcott was singular among the Transcendentalists in his unassailable optimism and the extent of his self-education. He is also the author of Orphic Sayings, Tablets, and Concord Days. Louisa May Alcott, portrayed him as the grandfather in her novel Little Women. His second daughter, Louisa Alcott, became a world-famous writer, and his youngest daughter, May, was a critically acclaimed artist. When Ralph Waldo Emerson met Amos Bronson Alcott in Boston in the late 1830's, he was so impressed with his intellect and innovative ideas that he convinced him to move to Concord and join his circle of friends.
Early in his life he was interested in the Quaker concept of "inner light" which is closer to the Hindu concept of the in-dwelling spirit in every man, the Atman or the Brahman. John T, Reid remarks: "As a young man....he was to identify the 'inner light' with Brahma."
The Bhagavad Gita impressed Alcott. He read it in 1846, during which he also read the writings of Carlyle, Coleridge, Goethe, Swedenborg and Behmen who were all idealists and mystics. On May 3, 1846, he wrote in his journal:
"In the evening I had an hour of quiet reading of the Oriental wisdom in the chapters of the Bhagavad Gita, on 'Works' and 'Performing of Works.'
On May 10, 17, and 19 the same year, he wrote in his journal:
"I read more of the Bhagavad Gita and felt how surpassingly fine were the sentiments. These, or selections from this book should be included in a Bible for Mankind. I think them superior to any of the other Oriental scriptures, the best of all reading for wise men."
"Best of books - containing a wisdom blander and far more sane than that of the Hebrews, whether in the mind of Moses or of Him of Nazareth. Were I a preacher, I would venture sometimes to take from its texts the motto and moral of my discourse. It would be healthful and invigorating to breathe some of this mountain air into the lungs of Christendom."
Alcott, was a strict vegetarian. One of his interests in the Bhagavad Gita was Gita's emphasis on Satwik food and vegetarianism. This strict vegetarianism led Alcott to establish a Utopian community called Fruitlands. In 'Orphic Sayings' Alcott talks about immortality and divinity of the soul - as in the Gita.
(source: Hindu Scriptures and American Transcendentalists - By Umesh Patri p. 143)
304. Amaury de Riencourt (1918 - ) was born in Orleans, France. He received his B.A. from the Sorbonne and his M.A. from the University of Algiers. He is author of several books including The American empire and The Soul of India, he wrote:
“The boundless riches
of the Hindu faith, its universal appeal, its tolerance, the profundity of
Hindu philosophy and its enduring roots among the Indian people all this made
India a poor soil for the sowing…”
"there can be no
doubt that the Upanishads are based on the most profound study and
understanding of human nature ever achieved, one with which we twentieth
century Westerners, in spite of our vast present day knowledge, have not yet
fully caught up."
"The Vedas
were the brilliant product of intuitive insight, not of the logical
intellect. The essence of the Upanisadic teaching, to the extent that it can be
coherently summarized, lies in the thesis that the Absolute is not separate
from man and nature but immanent in both. The transcendent outlook of the Vedas
(an outward projection of Vedic man’s unconscious) becomes an insight into the
immanent nature of the Absolute: “The infinite is not beyond the finite but in
the finite. Man’s goal is not so much union with the Divine (as in Atman) and
the Absolute or Divine (Brahman), which is the basic principle of monism.
Already, we can detect in Indian Culture an emphasis on the recovery of a
latent Being, rather than the striving to Become – Becoming being unreal since
the process of time has no reality whatsoever. "
This spiritual and
religious ethos of India is less vulnerable to scientific criticism than the
Western creeds (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) because it is not connected
with history - because spiritual symbolism of history has no meaning for it.
Its emphasis on psychology rather than theology, on the inner man rather than
on man's relations with the external universe, shields it from the corrosive
impact of our modern world.
(source: The Soul of India – by Amaury de Riencourt p 194 and 38 -
39 and 126 - 136 and 399). India Rediscovered - By Dr. Giriraj Shah p.
29 Abhinav Publications New Delhi 1975).
"The East
incorporates all that derived basically, from Indian culture: Hinduism,
Buddhism and their extensions in the Southeast Asia. The complementary
unity-in-diversity of that vast area springs from the fact that while Indian
philosophy and wisdom is the most profound, its most perfect means of
expression are to be found in Southeast Asia (Angkor, Borobudur).
"It does matter a
great deal to the West whether Christ rose bodily from the dead, multiplied
bread of loaves or even existed at all; it does not matter one whit to the East
whether Rama, Shiva or Buddha ever existed since their importance is neither
factual or historical but purely symbolic...because in the East there is no
conflict between fact and faith, since Eastern faith (sraddha) aims
basically at subjective cognition rather than the objective "believing to
be true" of the Westerner. The West has always attempted to impose
dogmatically its various viewpoints because, imbued with Biblical, Catholic,
Koranic sense of God-given historical mission and the conviction of having the
monopoly of literal religious truth, it felt that it was objectively in the
right - regardless of the increasing conflict, within its own cultures, between
the spiritual messages (often mutually contradictory) of its
"revealed" religions and scientific knowledge."
Thus, the "Eye
of Shiva" that is the eye of pure consciousness in Hinduism." "Many
Greeks fell under the spell of the Hindu or Buddhist philosophers and
life-styles. We know, for instance, that Pyrrho of Ellis, who founded the
philosophic school of "pure scepticism" (Pyrrhonism) in Greece around
330 B.C. joined Alexander's expedition to India and was strongly influenced by
the various saddhus he encountered and by that serene indifference to external
circumstances for which Greek philosophers yearned but almost never
achieved."
(source: The Eye of Shiva: Eastern Mysticism and Science - By Amaury de
Riencourt p. 54-68 and 80-82).
"Out of this
immense creation emerged one of the most famous and moving poems, the Bhagavad
Gita, whose soaring beauty makes it one of the monuments of world
literature."
"The Bhagavad
Gita is both supremely realistic and extremely idealistic, certainly the
most acute, penetrating depiction of human nature and true morality, however
remote it may seem from our own: "give thought to nothing but the act,
never to its fruits, and let not thyself be seduced by inaction. "The
Bhagavad Gita emphasizes all the basic contents of the Indian world-outlook
with remarkable vividness. Lord Krisna, for example, symbolizes the
principle of Divine Incarnation (avatar), the supreme spirit become flesh,
pouring into the world during the evil phases of the cosmic cycle in order to
check evil - but in a spirit of complete detachment and indifference. The
supreme thought of the Bhagavad Gita is concerned with tolerance:
"Whatsoever devotee seeks to worship whatsoever divine form (rupa) with
fervent faith, I, verily, make that faith of his unwavering."
"Mysticism has
its place in all great religions, but never has it had such a field day as in
India, where it never came into conflict with frozen dogmas or the prophetic
impulse."
"Yoga – is
Indian Civilization’s finest product, the ultimate perfection reached by
India’s best men. And because
nothing is so difficult as to rationalize and discipline mysticism, Indian
Civilization deserves full credit for having devised the best system for
reaching the goal. Yoga is essentially a neutral, well-tried technique,
compatible with any philosophy or religion, with Buddhism as with all forms of
Vedantism. Yoga is a civilization-technique, an expansion and systematized,
scientific development of the early tapas of the Arthava Veda. Yoga doctrine is at one with Vedanta, which
claims that the world is not different form (ananya) and non-independent of
(avyatirika) Brahman. Becoming is the great cosmic illusion – that is the
supreme expression of the Indian mind.
The wealth of
psychological insight revealed in the Upanishads and their various commentaries
cannot be adequately summarized. But there can be no doubt that they are based
on the most profound study and understanding of human nature ever achieved, one
with which we twentieth-century Westerners, in spite of our vast present day knowledge,
have not yet fully caught up.
(source: The Soul of India - By Amaury de Riencourt p.
39 and 50 - 51and 123-129). For more by Amaury de Riencourt refer to chapter on
GlimpsesX)
305. Dick Teresi (
? ) author and coauthor of several books about science and technology,
including The God Particle. He is cofounder of Omni magazine and has written for Discover, The New York
Times Magazine, and The Atlantic Monthly.
"The big bang is
the biggest-budget universe ever, with mind-boggling numbers to dazzle us – a
technique pioneered by fifth-century A.D. Indian cosmologists, the first to
estimate the age of the earth at more than 4 billion years.
The cycle of creation
and destruction continues forever, manifested in the Hindu deity Shiva, Lord
of the Dance, who holds the dream that sounds the universe’s creation in
his right hand and the flame that, billions of years later, will destroy the
universe in his left. Meanwhile Brahma is but one of untold numbers of other
gods dreaming their own universes.
The 8.64 billion years
that mark a full day-and-night cycle in Brahma’s life is about half the modern
estimate for the age of the universe. The ancient Hindus believed that each
Brahma day and each Brahma night lasted a kalpa, 4.32 billion years, with
72,000 kalpas equaling a Brahma century, 311,040 billion years in all. That the
Hindus could conceive of the universe in terms of billions.
The similarities
between Indian and modern cosmology do not seem accidental. Perhaps ideas of
creation from nothing, or alternating cycles of creation and destruction are
hardwired in the human psyche. Certainly Shiva’s percussive drumbeat
suggests the sudden energetic impulse that could have propelled the big bang.
And if, as some theorists have proposed, the big bang is merely the prelude to
the big crunch and the universe is caught in an infinite cycle of expansion and
contraction, then ancient Indian cosmology is clearly cutting edge compared to
the one-directional vision of the big bang. The infinite number of Hindu
universes is currently called the many world hypothesis, which is no less
undocumentable nor unthinkable.
The Indians came
closest to modern ideas of atomism, quantum physics, and other current
theories. India developed very early, enduring atomist theories of matter.
Possibly Greek atomistic thought was influenced by India, via the Persian
civilization. The Rig-Veda, is the first Indian literature to set down ideas
resembling universal natural laws. Cosmic law is connected with cosmic light,
with gods, and, later, specifically with Brahman." It was the Vedic
Aryans... who gave the world some of the earliest philosophical texts on the
makeup of matter and the theoretical underpinnings for the chemical makeup of
minerals. Sanskrit Vedas from thousands of years before Christ implied that
matter could not be created, and that the universe had created itself.
Reflecting this, in his Vaiseshika philosophy, Kanada (600 B. C)
claimed that elements could not be destroyed. Kanada's life is somewhat a
mysterious, but his name is said to mean "one who eats particle or
grain" likely referring to his theory that basic particles mix together as
the building blocks for all matter. Two, three, four, or more of these elements
would combine, just as we conceive of atoms doing. The Greeks would not stumble
on this concept for another century."
"In India, we see
the beginning of theoretical speculation of the size and nature of the earth.
Some one thousand years before Aristotle, the Vedic Aryans asserted that
the earth was round and circled the sun. A translation of the Rig Veda
goes: " In the prescribed daily prayers to the Sun we find..the Sun is at
the center of the solar system. ..The student ask, "What is the nature of
the entity that holds the Earth? The teacher answers, "Rishi Vatsa holds
the view that the Earth is held in space by the Sun."
"Two thousand
years before Pythagoras, philosophers in northern India had
understood that gravitation held the solar system together, and that therefore
the sun, the most massive object, had to be at its center." "Twenty-four
centuries before Isaac Newton, the Hindu Rig-Veda asserted that
gravitation held the universe together. The Sanskrit speaking Aryans subscribed
to the idea of a spherical earth in an era when the Greeks believed in a flat
one. The Indians of the fifth century A.D. calculated the age of the earth as
4.3 billion years; scientists in 19th century England were convinced it was 100
million years."
(source: Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science - By
Dick Teresi p. 1 - 8 and 159 and 174 -239). For
more on Dick Teresi refer to chapters Hindu_Culture, GlimpsesVI and GlimpsesVII )
306. Sir Yehudi
Menuhin (1915 – 1999) Born to Russian - Jewish parents who migrated to
America. One of the greatest violinists of the 20th century revered
an Indian Yogi as his teacher. He was famous for his affiliation with renowned
Hatha yoga teacher B K S Iyengar and legendary sitarist Ravi Shankar.
The more he learned about India and Yoga, the more he loved it. He was
among the first in the West to espouse yoga and the principles of organic
food.
He said: “India is
the primal source, the mother country.”
He acknowledged India,
Yoga, Indian music and his teacher Iyengar in three books he authored - Life Class, Unfinished Journey and Violin: Six lessons with Yehudi Menuhin.
Yoga touched every
dimension of Yehudi Menuhin’s life.
He wrote about
Yoga:
“Yoga made its
contribution to my quest to understand consciously the mechanics of violin
playing.” “Yoga taught me lessons it would have taken me years to learn by
other means. Yoga was my compass.” He was a genius at peace - a peace,
he said, that came from yoga.
In his book Six
Lessons, he devoted an entire chapter to specific yogasanas he had
learned. These practices, he asserted, "should form an important part of
the practice routine of any aspiring or performing violinist."
“We in the Western
world have grown to understand matter as imprisoned light, and light as
liberated matter, yet this has had no influence on our spiritual thought. In
practical terms it only led to the creation of the atom bomb. When I was a boy
no one seemed to ask where the energies come from. Land, oil, coal, air seemed
inexhaustible. Now we are realizing how our very life depends upon restoring
not only our balance with nature, but also the balance within ourselves. We are
depleting our reserves of spirit, health, courage and faith at an alarming
rate. The quiet practice of yoga is, in its humble yet effective way, an
antidote.”
(source: Hinduism
Today - July/August/September 2003 p. 40-41).
"The practice of
yoga induces a primary sense of measure and proportion. Reduced to our own
body, our first instrument, we learn to play it, drawing from it maximum
resonance and harmony."
(source: Yoga and the Bhagavad Gita - By Tom McArthur p. 12-14).
"Yoga" means
"union." Its goal is union with the infinite, a goal which can
be reached by any number of routes; but just as there is one ending, so there
is one beginning, the asanas of Hatha Yoga, which are the precondition of every
advance. It would be possible to make yoga a life's occupation, giving up more
and more of one's time to its refinement. For me yoga is primarily a yardstick
to inner peace. In my life yoga is an aid to well-being, permitting me to do
more and to do better."
"That India
should offer me at once a homeland and a new-found land with lasting power to
astonish seemed only right, for it is precisely the reconciling of
contradictions within an all-accepting unity that is the country's genius and
its abiding appeal to me. India, I feel, has softened my Talmudical
adjudications between right and wrong, upheld innocent acceptance of the lovely
things of life, given me much that was new yet welcome, understandable, waiting
to experienced."
He wrote about Indian
music:
"Despite predisposition
in India's favor, I have to acknowledge that Indian music took me by surprise.
I knew neither its nature nor its richness, but here, if anywhere, I found
vindication of my conviction that India was the original source."
"Its purpose is
to unite one's soul and discipline one's body, to make one sensitive to the
infinite within one, to unite one's breath of space, one's vibrations with the
vibrations of the cosmos."
(source: Unfinished Journey - By Yehudi Menuhin p. 250
- 268). For more on Yehudi Menuhin, refer to chapters Hindu Music and Yoga and Hindu
Philosophy).
307. Sir William
Wilson Hunter (1840-1900) He was educated at Glasgow University (B.A.
s86o), Paris and Bonn, acquiring a knowledge of Sanscrit, and passing first in
the final examination for the Indian Civil Service in 1862. Author of A
Brief History of the Indian Peoples and editor of Imperial Gazetteer of
India.He says "The Astronomy of the Hindus has formed the subject of excessive admiration."
(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 332 - 348).
"The various theories of creation, arrangement and development were each elaborated, and the views of the modern physiologists at the present day are a return with new light to the evolution theory of Kapila, whose Sankhya system is the oldest of the Darsanas."
(source: unknown).
"The Hindus attained a very high proficiency in arithmetic and algebra independently of any foreign influence." The romance of the composition of Lilavati - the standard Hindu text book on Arithmetic by Bhaskaracharya - is very interesting and charming. It deals not only with the basic elements of the science of arithmetic but also with questions of interest, of barter, of permutations and combinations, and of mensuration. Bhaskaracharya knew the law of gravitation. The Surya Siddhanta is based on a system of trigonometry. Professor Wallace says: "In fact it is founded on a geometrical theorem, which was not known to the geometricians of Europe before the time of Vieta, about two hundred years ago. And it employs the sine of arcs, a thing unknown to the Greeks." The 47th proposition of Book I of Euclid, which is ascribed to Pythagoras was known long ago to the Hindus and must have been learnt from them by Pythagoras."
(source: Indian Culture and the Modern Age - By Dewan Bahadur K. S. Ramaswami Sastri Annamalai University. 1956 p. 67).
He observed:
"The grammar of Panini stands supreme among the grammars of the world, alike for its precision of statement, and for its thorough analysis of the roots of the language and of the formative principles of words. By employing an algebraic terminology it attains a sharp succinctness unrivalled in brevity, but at times enigmatical. It arranges, in logical harmony, the whole phenomena which the Sanskrit language presents, and stands forth as one of the most splendid achievements of human invention and industry. So elaborate is the structure, that doubts have arisen whether its complex rules of formation and phonetic change, its polysyllabic derivatives, its ten conjugations with their multiform aorists and long array of tenses, could ever have been the spoken language of a people."
(source: The Indian Empire - By Sir William Wilson Hunter p. 142).
308. Tom McArthur (
?) author of Yoga and the Bhagavad Gita has observed:
"If all the forms
of Christianity from voodoo in Haiti to Christian Science in Boston were penned
up – and had for centuries been penned up – in one peninsula, however large,
then the results would be much the same as the Hinduism we see today. Vishnu
and Shiva are no more at odds than Calvin and the Papacy; the Hare Krishna movement
and the Ramakrishna Mission are no further apart than the Pentecostalists and
the Jesuits."
"Hinduism is
India’s response to what the German philosopher of religion Rudolf Otto has called
‘the numinous’, that mystery all around us that fascinates and inspires awe.
The universe into which we are born –thrust, thrown, whatever, weak and
dependent as kittens – is only ever partly explicable, often hostile, and
always awesome, whether we want to feel the awe or not.
Hinduism demonstrates
the interplay of seven factors over at least 3,000 years. Natural disasters are
a constant in the collective Indian experience, part of the Wheel of Rebirth.
Mountains, rivers, cities, and shrines have all been turned into focuses of
supernatural powers; they are the bindus or ‘points’ where the gods meet us or
this world touches the Other.
Hinduism combines in its gigantic
tapestry the threads of both fantasy and logic, where some centuries ago
the Western world severed the two fairly thoroughly. In the West, rationality
and fantasy live uneasily together in divided minds; in India at large, the
division was never even attempted, at least not until the coming of European
education."
There are no Egyptian
pharaohs now, but when Cleopatra lived there were yogis, and there are
yogis still. The Greek philosophers and the Roman legions are no more, the
Arab-Muslim expansion has come and gone, and the European maritime empires on
which the sun wasn't supposed to set have all been dismantled. Some kind of
yoga was there when all that was happening, and many kinds of yoga are here now
- some even being considered for use abroad starships. That is continuity and
it is worth a little thought. Yoga is embedded in the literature of the
Hindus as well as in their age old practices, and that literature is in turn
one of the richest seams of recorded language anywhere on the planet. The sheer
volume of stories, treatises, and commentaries challenges the imagination.
"
(source: Yoga and the Bhagavad Gita - By Tom McArthur p. 1 - 14).
For more on Tom McArthur refer to chapter Yoga and Hindu
Philosophy)
309. Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998)
was born in 1907 in Basle, Switzerland, of German parents. He was a
philosopher, poet and artist author of Language of the Self. Many of his
ideas are taken from Vedanta.
Schuon often expressed
a deep appreciation for Advaita-Vedanta and characterized his perspective as
that of the Sanatana Dharma, the "eternal religion."
Schuon considers yoga
as a spiritual exercise which results "not from a human willing, but
from the nature of things," thus applying to the substance of the soul
principles that are quasi-geometrical in their objectivity.
"The Vedanta
appears among explicit doctrines as one of the most direct formulations
possible of that which makes the very essence of our spiritual reality. (...)
The Vedanta of Shankara, which is here more particularly being
considered, is divine and immemorial in its origin and by no means the creation
of Shankara, who was only its great and providential enunciator. (...)
According to the Vedanta the contemplative must become absolutely
'Himself'; according to other perspectives, such as that of the Semitic
religions, man must become absolutely 'Other' than himself --or than the 'I'--
and from the point of view of pure truth this is exactly the same thing."(source: Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts - By Frithjof Schuon chapter 2 and Dharma, India and World Order - By Chaturvedi Badrinath p. 261).
"Because of its
vast complexity, Hinduism is inherently perplexing and its philosophies inherently
paradoxical; indeed, this is part of their strength. They won’t tamely
co-operate and fit; they tease the mind and force it to go further.
"
(source: Yoga and the Bhagavad Gita - By Tom McArthur p.
38-42)
310. Madame Helena
Petrova Blavatsky (1831- 1891) HPB, as she was known, was a cultured and
widely traveled woman. Brilliant, fiery and witty; able to attract the
attention of the highest minds, she was in the frequent company of scientists,
philosophers and scholars in many fields. She wrote many books-Isis Unveiled,
The Voice of Silence and Key to Theosophy. But her magnum opus, The Secret
Doctrine, published in 1885, is her most profound book-a bible of
Theosophy.
She traveled to India and entered Tibet via Kashmir and Ladakh. In
the 19th century, imperialism had reached its height. Western nations were so
convinced of the superiority of the white races that they had no compunction
about exploiting their colonies. In this environment, Mme. Blavatsky taught the
first principle of occultism-the brotherhood of all humanity, the unity of all
races.
With its
strong resemblances to Eastern mysticism and spirituality, Theosophy has an
intertwining relationship with Hinduism-especially the Upanishads and Advaita
Vedanta-and also Buddhism. The establishment of the Theosophical Society in
1875 in New York proved to be a precursor and harbinger of Hinduism in the
West. Mahatma Gandhi reports further that the two Theosophists who introduced
him to the Bhagavad Gita also took him on one occasion to the Blavatsky
Lodge and introduced him to Madame Blavatsky and Mrs. Besant. Theosophy was Woven From and Into the Fabric of Sanatana Dharma
The small 19th century Theosophical movement impacted Hinduism in diverse ways, from India's independence from the British to the widespread acceptance of Hindu thinking in the West. The Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita translations of Swami Prabhavananda with Theosophist Christopher Isherwood were singularly successful in clearly conveying Hindu thought to the West. Leadbeater's books on occult sciences, such as chakras and auras, reinforced Patanjali's Yoga Aphorisms. Aldous Huxley's book, Doors of Perception, promoted mystical experience and also psychedelic drugs, leading directly to the explosion of interest in the East in the 60s. The Secret Doctrine is saturated with Hinduism and Sanskrit terminology, and the bulk of this was copied from Wilson’s Vishnu Purana(source: Theosophy - By Archana Dongre - Hinduismtoday.com - June 1995
311. Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) the famous Austrian existentialist philosopher
Regarding Shankara's commentary, once told Professor K. Satchidananda Murthy that, 'there is no metaphysics superior to that of Shankara.'
(source: Vedanta influence - vedanta.org).
312. Paul Thieme (1905 - ) German Indologist University of Tuebingen has observed:
"Vedas are noble documents not only of value and pride to India, but to the entire humanity because in them we see man attempting to lift himself above the earthly writing of epics."
(source: India Rediscovered - By Giriraj Shah p. 39)
313. Kewal Motwani (1899 - ) author of several books including Manu Dharma S'satra: A sociological and historical study
"Environmental,
biological, ethnological, psychological and spiritual forces have gone into the
making of an Indian culture of amazing virility and continuity."
"One idea runs
through all the modes of thought and segments of social reality, and that is
the Vision of the One, while India's history is a continuous attempt to make
this Vision a living reality in the life of every man, woman and child. This
enduring quest and its realization have imparted to Indian culture a
continuity, universality, humanity, and spirituality that have placed it beyond
the challenge of time. This Vision emphasized integration, synthesis,
dharma, gathering up of the many into the one, in every phase of life of the
individual, the group and the nation."
"Science was
woven into philosophical thought - The study and cultivation of exact sciences in
India was a part of search for truth and reality. From Vedic times onwards,
investigations into the realm of the spiritual included those of the physical.
The whole of the philosophical literature is replete with and based on some of
the tenets of science as we understand it today. It has been an unmitigated
calamity for India that it were the philologists, both eastern and western, who
became the first interpreters to her ancient Sanskrit literature. India's Sanskrit
literature came to be interpreted in an apologetic tone and from the standpoint
of the western achievements. Some of the sublimities of the Hindu thought, far
ahead of the prevailing times, were considered as oddities belonging to
primitive past. The great Orientalists were philologists, not
philosophers."
Science was woven into
philosophical thought of India. India saw Reality as a whole; there was no
partition walls in the world of the One. With this universality, humanity and
sublime idealism India offered a challenge to time.
"India was called
the Bharat Varsha, the "country that embraces all in one bond," and
she was selected to become the embodiment of that immutable, eternal, law of
the universe, Santana Dharma - dharma is that which "holds together"
- which makes the universes run in their orbits. It was this principle of
dharma, synthesis, balance, harmonious relationship between various forces and
factors, between various individuals and groups, that came to be the
corner-stone of her civilization." "India has been known as the moksha-bhumi
and karma-bhoomi, the Land of Liberty, spiritual and temporal, gained through
service of fellowmen. India was not thought of as a bhoga-bhumi, a
pleasure-resort for a single life-time allowed to the mortals. India is the
only country in the world where civilization has revolved round this
fundamental spiritual nucleus, where the greatest concentration of intellect
has centered round the basic human problem of existence..."
"From the ancient
past to the present day, this spiritual quest of the One has received India's
continued homage. There have been alternating periods of quiet and intense
philosophical activity, but the search has continued. The lights have
flickered, but never faded, so that even today, attempts are made to penetrate
the esoteric sublimity of India's sacred teachings."
"In India,
religion became scientific and philosophical; science received religious
sanction and philosophic support, and philosophy became religious, with a practical
bearing on the problems of daily life. Here lies the secret of India's
uniqueness and greatness. India saw Reality as a whole; there was no partition
walls in the world of the One. With this universality, humanity and sublime
idealism India offered a challenge to time."
(source: India: A synthesis of cultures – By Kewal Motwani p.
9 - 46 and 71- 75)
314. Sir William Wedderburn
Bart (1838 - 1918) He left for India in 1860 and began official duty at
Dharwar as an Assistant Collector. He was appointed Acting Judicial
Commissioner in Sind and Judge of the Sadar Court in 1874. In 1882 he became
the District and Sessions Judge of Poona. At the time of his retirement in
1887, he was the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay. As a Liberal,
William. Wedderburn believed in the principle of self-government.
"The Indian
village has thus for centuries remained a bulwark against political disorder,
and the home of the simple domestic and social virtues. No wonder, therefore,
that philosophers and historians have always dwelt lovingly on this
ancient institution which is the natural social unit and the best type of
rural life: self-contained, industrious, peace-loving, conservative in the best
sense of the word...I think you will agree with me that there is much that is
both picturesque and attractive in this glimpse of social and domestic life in
an Indian village. It is a harmless and happy form of human existence.
Moreover, it is not without good practical outcome."
(source: Hindu Swaraj or Indian Home Rule - By M. K. Gandhi p.110).
315. Robert Earnest
Hume (1877-1948) was the only American Sanskritist native to India (he was
born in Bombay) and taught in India as well as at Oxford. His correct
appreciation of the Upanishads as the first written evidence of a philosophical
system in India resulted in the publication of his Thirteen Principal
Upanishads in 1921. It has been reprinted many times since then. With skillful
imperative he included his estimation of the Upanishads in a lengthy
introduction:
"In the long history of man's endeavor to grasp the
fundamental truths of being, the metaphysical treatises known as the
Upanishads hold an honored place . . . they are replete with sublime
conceptions and with intuitions of universal truth. . . . The Upanishads
undoubtedly have great historical and comparative value, but they are also of
great present-day importance. It is evident that the monism of the
Upanishads has exerted and will continue to exert an influence on the monism of
the West; for it contains certain elements, which penetrate deeply into the
truths which every philosopher must reach in a thoroughly grounded explanation
of experience."
(source: The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, vii ff,)
"The earnestness of the search for the Truth is one of the
more delightful and commendable features of the Upanishads," Hume wrote in a
footnote to that work. (Op.cit., 301n)
Hume's second
revised edition of The Thirteen Principal Upanishads was published in 1931. A
favorable, authoritative review by R. D. Ranade gave prominence to Hume's work.
This edition included an appendix with a list of recurrent and parallel
passages in the major Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. The list, prepared by
Hume's co-author George C. O. Haas, was printed earlier in the Journal of the
American Oriental Society. (source:source: The Thirteen Principal Upanishads - By R. E. Hume p. 36 and http://www.vedanta-newyork.org/articles/vedanta_influence_2.htm and http://www.swaveda.com/articles.php?action=show&id=48 )
316. G. Le Bon ( ? ) commenting on Hindu philosophers:
"Their philosophical daring remains unequalled to this day; indeed, one has to admit that, 2,000 years ago, India had begun pondering on the great issues which have been raised in the West only in within the last century, and that, in doing so, it did not shrink from the most drastic solution."
(source: The World of Ancient India - By G. Le Bon p. 100).
317. James Young (1782-1848) officer, Bengal Horse Artillery, and twice sheriff of Calcutta Secretary, Savon Mechanics Institutes
"Those races (the Indian viewed from a moral aspect) are perhaps the most remarkable people in the world. They breathe an atmosphere of moral purity, which cannot but excite admiration, and this is especially the case with the pioneer classes, who, notwithstanding the privations of their humble, lot, appear to be happy and contented. Domestic felicity appears to be the rule among the Natives, and this is the more strange when the customs of marriage are taken into account, parents arranging all such matters. Many Indian households afford examples of the married state in its highest degree of perfection.
This may be due to the teachings of the Shastras...."
(source: Hindu Swaraj or Indian Home Rule - By M. K. Gandhi p. 108 - 1-09).
318. Abraham Kaplan (1918 - ) American professor of philosophy, has commented that the Upanishads are:
"remarkable in literary quality as well as in content."
(source: The New World of Philosophy - By Abraham Kaplan New York: Vintage Books, 1961 p. 203)
319. Anant Sadashiv Altekar ( ? ) author of several books including Education in Ancient India and Sources of Hindu dharma in its socio-religious aspects, wrote:
"Hindu religion, philosophy and social structure are nothing but the records of a glorious and instructive struggle of the human mind to free itself from limitations that become meaning less in the course of time, and to attain to more and more glorious heights that are revealed by man's ever expanding vision. There is no doubt that Hinduism will become once more a great world force, the moment this consciousness becomes a part and parcel of the modern Hindu mind and begins to mold and influence its activities in the different spheres of life."
(source: Hinduism: A Static Structure or a Dynamic force? - By A S Altekar p. 425).
320. Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad (1891-1953) British philosopher, author, teacher, and radio personality. He was one of Britain's most colorful and controversial intellectual figures of the 1940s. He became head of the department of philosophy at Birbeck College, Univ. of London, in 1930. As a rationalist, he was a successful lecturer and writer. Author of several books including Guide to Philosophy and The Story of Indian Civilization.
"Hinduism developed from the very first a wide tolerance, Hindus do not proselytize, they do not lay exclusive claims to salvation, and they do not believe that God will be pleased by wholesome slaughter of those of his creatures whose beliefs are mistaken. As a result, Hinduism has been less degraded than the most religions by the anomaly of creed wars."
The civilization of the East are very old; their roots stretch back into the past to a time when Europe was still a cockpit of fighting savages."
(source: India Rediscovered - By Dr. Giriraj Shah p. 23 -24 Abhinav Publications New Delhi 1975 and Counter Attacks From the East - By C E M Joad p. 23-24 Hindu Kitabs Ltd. Bombay1933)
Regarding the Upanishads, he observed:
"The thought of the Upanishads is bold and free, and their general conclusion is that mystical experience is the pathway to reality."
He made the following
observation regarding Hindu philosophy:
"Perhaps the most
outstanding achievement of Indian civilization is Indian philosophy, or rather
Indian philosophy and Indian religion. Indian philosophy is quite unlike that
of any other people; it is distinguished by three characteristics.
The first is
continuity. Indian thinkers have been enquiring into the nature and meaning
of the universe more or less continuously for a period of some three thousand
years.
The second is
unanimity. Broadly speaking, all Indian thinkers have concurred in holding that
the universe in its real nature is in an important sense a unity, and that this
unity is spiritual. Now that universe, as it appears, is certainly not a unity
but a heterogeneous diversity. It contains, that is to say – it apparently is –
a collection of an enormous number of people and things. Hence, there must be a
distinction between the universe as it really is and the universe as it
appears, a distinction which may be expressed by saying that the universe is a
reality which manifests itself in diversity, just as the leit motify or
underlying theme of a piece of music manifest itself in the diversity of
individual notes which all express the same musical idea. Now, it is broadly
true that all Indian thinkers have concurred in making this distinction.
Thirdly, and here we
come to the link between philosophy and religion – Indian philosophy
has never been confined to the activity of the intellect. Formally, no doubt,
it is a search for truth; but philosophy in India does more than search for
truth; it also seeks and prescribes a way of life. In fact, in the last resort
it is a way of life, a way of life as well as a way of believing. This
practical effect of Indian philosophy follows inevitably from the doctrines of
Indian philosophers.
For the Westerner, a
religion is a body of doctrine consisting of certain affirmations about the
nature of the universe and about God, the creator of the universe, divinely
revealed to the mind of the believer, and therefore, absolutely and eternally
true. From the assurance that the doctrines of any particular religion are
absolutely and eternally true, it follows that the doctrines of any other
religion, is so far as they differ from them, cannot be true. Hence, the
persecution and intolerance which have so continuously accompanied the practice
of religion in the West are in a large part the offspring of the persecutors’
conviction of the absolute truth of the beliefs in the interests of which he
has persecuted, and of the wickedness of the contrary beliefs which he has
sought to stamp out. Now in Indian philosophy, while teaching that reality is
spiritual and is one, was not prepared to make a detailed and dogmatic
specification of the nature of “the One”. In the absence of detailed and
dogmatic specification, men were at liberty to conceive it very much as they
pleased. Thus, the doctrines of Hinduism were never reduced to a set of
formal creeds and Hindu religion has always been willing to receive new
experiences and to incorporate new knowledge. "
"Indian
history has been distinguished throughout by a tendency towards toleration.
Other peoples' faith have been preserved, other people's customs respected; and
not only preserved and respected, but assimilated. Such toleration is a very
rare thing in the history of mankind, as rare as it is invaluable. Throughout
the whole course of Indian history, the characteristic Indian endeavor has been
to look for the common element in apparently different things, the single
reality that underlies the apparently many appearances. It is interesting then,
to note this same insistence upon unity, the same endeavor to unite many into
one as exhibited by the very early lawgivers and administrators of India. At
the very beginning of Indian history, we find men trying to reconcile the conflicting
ideas held by different people with regard to the right way of living together
in society and the right way of conceiving God." "Whatever the
reason, it is a fact that India's special gift to mankind has been the
ability and willingness of Indians to effect a synthesis of many different
elements both of thoughts and peoples, to create in short, unity out of
diversity." "They are cosmopolitan in outlook, tolerant in
behavior, and open minded in thought."(source: The Story of Indian Civilization - By C. E. M. Joad p. 5 - 26 and 45).
321. Srinivas Ramanujan (1887-1920) is one of India's legendary intellectual heroes, hailed as one of the greatest Mathematician of India and compared to all time greats, Euler, Gauss and Jacobi, for natural genius, is an eternal source of inspiration, especially for the student of mathematics. Today's mathematicians --armed with supercomputers -- are still star-struck, and unable to solve many theorems the slate-scribbling mathematician, too poor for paper, erasing his errors with one elbow young man from India. Ramanujan spawned a zoo of mathematical creatures that delight, confound and humble his peers. They call them "beautiful," "humble," "transcendent," and marvel how he reduced very complex terrain to simple shapes. G H Hardy, brightest mathematician in England, later wrote: "A single look at them is enough to show that they could only be written down by a mathematician of the highest class. They must be true, for if they were not true, no one would have the imagination to invent them."
Ramanujan was a mathematician so great his name transcends
jealousies, the one superlatively great mathematician whom India has produced
in the last hundred years. "His leaps of intuition confound mathematicians
even today, seven decades after his death. ..the brilliant, self-taught Indian
mathematician whose work contains some of the most beautiful ideas in the
history of science. His legacy has endured. His twenty-one major mathematical
papers are still being plumbed for their secrets, and many of his ideas are
used today in cosmology and computer science. His theorems are being applied in
areas - polymer chemistry, computers, cancer research - scarcely imaginable
during his lifetime. His mathematical insights yet leave mathematicians
baffled that anyone could divine them in the first place.'
A
mathematical genius who ascribed his brilliance to a personal relationship with
a Hindu Goddess. He saw the divine in the dance of numbers. The inexhaustible Ramanujan was an observant Hindu, adept at dream interpretation and astrology. His work was marked by bold leaps and gut feelings. Growing up he had learned to worship Namagiri, the consort of the lion god Narasimha. Ramanujan believed that he existed to serve as Namagiri´s champion - Hindu Goddess of creativity. In real life Ramanujan told people that Namagiri visited him in his dreams and wrote equations on his tongue
Ramanujan could never explain to G H Hardy how he arrived at his deep insights in mathematical terms; but he did say many of his discoveries came to him in dreams, from the goddess Namakkal, and that he had a morning ritual of awakening and writing them down.
He was intensely religious. He often united mathematics and spirituality together. He felt, for example, that zero represented Absolute Reality, and that infinity represented the many manifestations of that Reality. Ramanujan felt that each mathematical discovery was a step closer to understanding the spiritual universe. He once told a friend, "An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God."
While growing up, he lived the life of a traditional Brahmin with his forehead shaved and wearing a topknot. He often prayed to his family Deity, the Goddess Namagiri of Namakkal, and followed Her advice. Namakkal is also called as "Namagiri". He pilgrimaged all over Tamil Nadu. He quoted the Vedas, interpreted dreams and was regarded by his friends to be a mystic. Throughout his life, Ramanujan worshiped at the Sarangapani Vishnu temple in Kumbakonam.
(source: Ramanujan and Computing the Mathematical face of God) (source: Hit Play on Ramanujan and A Baffling Mind - By Iraja Sivadas - Hinduism Today Oct/Nov/December 2003 p. 60 -62).
Mathematicians have mined his theorems ever since. They've figured out how to prove them. They've put them to use. Only recently, a lost bundle of his notebooks turned up in a Cambridge library. That set mathematics off on a whole new voyage of discovery. And where did all this unproven truth come from? Ramanujan was quick to tell us. He simply prayed to Sarasvathi, the Goddess of Learning, and she informed him. The unsettling thing is, none of us can find any better way to explain the magnitude of his eerie brilliance.
(source: http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi495.htm - John H. Lienhard and The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan - by Robert Kanigel).
He wasn't spiritually preoccupied, but he was steeped in the reality and beneficence of the Deities, especially the Goddess Namagiri. Math, of course, was his intellectual and spiritual touchstone. No one really knows how early in life Ramanujan awakened to the psychic visitations of Namagiri, much less how the interpenetration of his mind and the Goddess' worked.
(source: Computing the Mathematical Face of God: S. Ramanujan). (Unlike most other major religions, Hindu myth and theology contain ancient and deep mathematical threads, with particular accomplishments in Number Theory and a joyous spontaneity about huge numbers. An Indian stamp issued in 1962 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Ramanujan's birth).
322. Georges
Ifrah ( ? ) French historian of Mathematics and
author of the book, The Universal History of Numbers
"The Indian mind
has always had for calculations and the handling of numbers an extraordinary
inclination, ease and power, such as no other civilization in history ever
possessed to the same degree. So much so that Indian culture regarded the
science of numbers as the noblest of its arts...A thousand years ahead of
Europeans, Indian savants knew that the zero and infinity were mutually inverse
notions."
(source: Histoire Universelle des Chiffres - By Georges Ifrah
Paris - Robert Laffont, 1994, volume 2. p. 3 ).
Claiming India to be
the true birthplace of our numerals, Ifrah salutes the Indian researchers
saying that the "...real inventors of this fundamental discovery, which is
no less important than such feats as the mastery of fire, the development of
agriculture, or the invention of the wheel, writing or the steam engine, were
the mathematicians and astronomers of the Indian civilization: scholars who,
unlike the Greeks, were concerned with practical applications and who were
motivated by a kind of passion for both numbers and numerical
calculations."
He refers to 24
evidences from scriptures from India, whose dates range from 1150 BC until 458
BC. Of particular interest is the work by Indian mathematician Bhaskaracharya
known as Bhaskara (1150 BC) where he makes a reference to zero and the
place-value system were invented by the god Brahma. In other
words, these notions were so well established in Indian thought and
tradition that at this time they were considered to have always been used by
humans, and thus to have constituted a "revelation" of the
divinities.
"It was only
after the eighth century BC, and doubtless due to the influence of the Indian
Buddhist missionaries, that Chinese mathematicians introduced the use of zero
in the form of a little circle or dot (signs that originated in
India),...".
The early passion
which Indian civilization had for high numbers was a significant factor
contributing to the discovery of the place-value system, and not only offered
the Indians the incentive to go beyond the "calculable" physical
world, but also led to an understanding (much earlier than in our civilization)
of the notion of mathematical infinity itself.
“The real inventors of
[the numeral system], which is no less important than such feats as the mastery
of fire, the development of agriculture, or the invention of the wheel, writing
or the steam engine, were the mathematicians and astronomers of Indian
civilization: scholars who, unlike the Greeks, were concerned with practical
applications and who were motivated by a kind of passion for both numbers and
numerical calculations.”
Sanskrit notation had
an excellent conceptual quality. It was easy to use and moreover it facilitated
the conception of the highest imaginable numbers. This is why it was so well
suited to the most exuberant numerical or arithmetical-cosmogonic speculations
of Indian culture."
"The Indian
people were the only civilization to take the decisive step towards the
perfection of numerical notation. We owe the discovery of modern numeration and
the elaboration of the very foundations of written calculations to India
alone."
"It is clear
how much we owe to this brilliant civilization, and not only in the field of
arithmetic; by opening the way to the generalization of the concept of the
number, the Indian scholars enabled the rapid development of mathematics and
exact sciences. The discoveries of these men doubtless required much time and
imagination, and above all a great ability for abstract thinking. These
major discoveries took place within an environment which was at once mystical,
philosophical, religious, cosmological, mythological and metaphysical."
"In India, an
aptitude for the study of numbers and arithmetical research was often combined
with a surprising tendency towards metaphysical abstractions; in fact,
the latter is so deeply ingrained in Indian thought and tradition that one
meets it in all fields of study, from the most advanced mathematical ideas to
disciplines completely unrelated to 'exact sciences.
In short, Indian
science was born out of a mystical and religious culture and the etymology of
the Sanskrit words used to describe numbers and the science of numbers bears
witness to this fact. "
"Sanskrit means
“complete”, “perfect” and “definitive”. In fact, this language is extremely
elaborate, almost artificial, and is capable of describing multiple
levels of meditation, states of consciousness and psychic, spiritual and even
intellectual processes. As for vocabulary, its richness is considerable and
highly diversified. Sanskrit has for centuries lent itself admirably to the
diverse rules of prosody and versification. Thus we can see why poetry has
played such a preponderant role in all of Indian culture and Sanskrit
literature. "
(source: The Universal History of Numbers - By Georges Ifrah
p 365 - 441). For more refer to chapter on GlimpsesIX and Hindu Culture1)
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
(My humble salutations to , H H Swamyjis, Hindu Wisdom, great Universal Philosophers, Historians, Professors and Devotees for the discovering collection)
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