Nahta Bandhu Abhinandan Granth

Author(s): Dashrath Sharma
Publisher: Agarchand Nahta Abhinandan Granth Prakashan Samiti

Page 594

has the powerful advantage of bringing together by means of his little memoranda : 1
Even the much-extolled Max Müller himself was, unfortunately, a bigoted and dogmatic Christian? as would be testified by some of his fulminations which make interesting reading as examples of a distorted judgment :
(a) "History seems to teach that the whole human race required gradual education before, in fullness of time, it could be admitted to the truths of Christianity's
(b) “A large number of Vedic hymns are childish in the extreme : tedious, low, commonplace."'4
(c) "The ancient religion of India is doomed and if Christianity does no, step in, whose fault will it be?"5
Sir Monier-Williams, the successor of Professor H. H. Wilson to the Boden Chair at Oxford and the author of the Sanskrit-English and English-Sanskrit Dictionaries, minces no words when, in his defence against personal criticism to which he had for many years been content to acquiesce without comment, declares by way of an explanation in the following words:
"I have made it the chief aim of my professional life to provide facilities for the translation of our sacred Scriptures into Sanskrit, and for the promotion ot a better knowledge of the religions and customs of India, as the best key to a knowledge of the religious needs of our great Eastern Dependency. My very first public lecture delivered after my election in 1860 was on 'The Study of Sanskrit in relation to Missionary Work in India' (published in 1861)."'8
Not only that, he has further expressed his cherished aspirations as follows:
"When the walls of the mighty fortress of Brahmanism are encircled, undermined, and finally stormed by the soldiers of the Cross, the victory of Christianity must be signal and complete."7
1. Ibid. 2. Kailash Chandra Varma, op. cit., p. 195. 3. Max Müller, A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 32. 1. Pandit Bhagavaddatta, op. cit., p. 39, quoted from Chips from a German
Workshop, Second Edition, 1866, p. 27; also India, What It Can Teach Us,
Lecture iv. 5, Ibid. p. 38, quoted from a letter of Max Müller to Duke of Argyll. Under Secre
tary of State for India (dated the 16th December, 1868). 6. Monier-Williams, Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Preface to the New Edition,
pp. ix-x. 7. Pandit Bhagavaddatta, op. cit., p. 9,
इतिहास और पुरातत्त्व : १०५