Indian Antiquary Vol 17

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY, 1888.
much in their essential attributes; but they die the Babu. In endeavouring to inculcate our because they no longer gain recruits, and it is ideas into brains which are not made for them, probable that such also was the end of Buddhism. she is producing mischievous beings to whom it If it has survived in Nôpal, it is, says Dr. Le Bon, will be necessary, sooner or later, to yield a porthat that country is to-day in the same phase of tion, greater or less of the power of Government. evolution as that in which India was in the 10th That will be the commencement of the ruin. century. M. Barth doubts this. Peculiar history | That the Babů is too often an impertinent and must be explained by peculiar causes. What insupportable being, and that the question of peculiar causes have been at work in Nepal he public education in India is peculiarly complidoes not know, but he suggests one cause which cated, and even full of perils, no one can doubt. may have exercised some influence, viz., that But all this passage, in which according to M. there are scarcely any true Brahmans in Nepal Barth) one seems to hear the passionate polemics and it is permissible to suppose that it has been raised in the English and Anglo-Hindu press by thus for long.
the measures of Lord Ripon, is marked with an The work concludes with considerations on the evident exaggeration. For the last 50 years, and India of to-day, and its future. Dr. Le Bon more, the question of education has been under renders homage to the greatness of the work consideration in India; it has been faced on all accomplished by England, but M. Barth considers sides, and many systems have been essayed. this homage grudgingly given. The author draws What would that of Dr. Le Bon be P Would he back with one hand, with interest, what he has have England build a wall of China round her just given with the other. In fact, he is unjust. colony P Could she do soP If she oould, should He admits the grand qualities of honesty, firm- she, that she may conform to the anthropological ness, and dignity in the bulk of British officials, laws, which are not perhaps sufficiently ascer England, better advised than other nations, tained, given us by the author P The B&bů is sending there her picked men, and yet he known in other places besides India. He can be appears to attribute their ascendanoy only to their found here, in Europe, if wanted; but every haughtiness (morgue)! He dares to say that
native who has received an English education is "till the Mutiny the Government of India was not like him. .. The law of races does not the exploitation pure and simple of 200 millions perhaps prevent our knowledge being communi. of men by a company of merchants, protected by oated to them, their being taught to apply it, and bands of mercenaries," while he plainly avers their being taught gradually the details of public that the substitution of the crown for the com- business. Already, in India, there are municipal pany was, in reality, only the official conseoration committees composed of natives, more free in of a state of things long since established in faot. their sphere than town councils in France, and it He goes further. This régime of exploitation is does not appear that they have turned out badly. still to continue'; for among the five general Let us hope then, with many well-informed rules which, according to him, direot the oolonial English, that the sons of the Babû will be worth policy of England, the 3rd is "that a colony more than their fathers, and that England will should be considered as a property which it is not have some day to defend her work against necessary to exploit entirely for the profit of another very different enemy. At present she is the mother-country." If he means by this to not seriously threatened from without : but if, as say simply that England does not deal in a consequenoe of events similar to those which sentimental politics, that she does not aot have made Austria an Eastern power, Russia hag knowingly against her own interests, it is a to resign herself to becoming an Asiatic one, truism. No nation would knowingly act so. from that day the empire of England in India If, on the contrary, he means that the conduct of will be in a critical condition. England is coldly selfish and without compassion, (g). May 2nd.-This number contains a review M. Barth says that it is false, and he regrets, written by M. R. Duval of Mr. Budge's Edition for the sake of Dr. Le Bon, that he has traversed of the Book of the Bee. This work was written India without perceiving it.
in the 13th century by Salomon, Metropolitan of As regards the future, the author poses as a Basrå, who in the preface explains that just as the pessimist. According to him England is under- bee manufactures its honey from the nectar of mining her own work by the education which she flowers, so he has extracted from the Paradise of gives to the natives. That work will perish by holy books, and of the works of the Fathers and
The Book of the Bee, Syriac text, and English translation by Ernest Wallis Budge. Anecdota Oxoniensia, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1886.