If I were to look
over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth,
power, and beauty that nature can bestow—in some parts, a very paradise on earth—I should point to India. If I were asked
under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts,
has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions
of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied
Plato and Kant—I should point to India.
And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have
been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one
Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order
to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact
more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal
life—again I should point to India.
-MAX MULLAR
I shall not attempt to prove that Sanskrit literature
is as good as Greek literature. Why should we always compare. A study of Greek literature
has its own purpose, and a study of Sanskrit literature has its own purpose ; but
what I feel convinced of, and hope to convince you of, is that' Sanskrit literature,
if studied only in a right spirit, is full of human interests, full of lessons which
even Greek could never teach Us.
No comments:
Post a Comment