Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 2

Author(s): G C Chaudhary
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 30

CONTRIBUTIONS OF WESTERN SCHOLARS
scholars and Professors was greater in Germany than anywhere else before the second world war. The work of Bopp and Schlegal brothers has been continued by Lessen, Weber, Oldenburg, Buhler, Keilhern and numerous others.
These scholars by applying new method of comparative study had succeeded in proving the highest value of Sanskrit literature and on the basis of their study they founded the new sciences of comparative Religion, Comparative Mythology, Comparative Philology and Scientific History. Previous to this new method, history meant the study of romantic incidents and personal adventures, upon fights and dynastic intrigues rather than upon the evolution of social Institutions and growth of human ideas. Each event recorded was regarded as isolated, unconnected either as causes or effects, with what followed or with what had gone before.
But in the new method all this has been changed. Personal details, the stories of battles and treacheries of courts have faded into insigifi. cance. The outlook of historians totally changed. They wanted to have a clearer vision of the great panorama of the history of mankind. For this they paid great attention to the study of social institutions, the religious beliefs, the scientific attainments and the philosophical ideas. These matters were to continue steady in their growth and influence while dynasties rise and fall. They put and interpreted the material available from Sanskrit sources in such a manner that it itself began to narrate the whole story.
Prior to the advent of the Western scholars on the field of Indian learning, the Sanskrit scholarship in India was engaged in verbal hairsplitting. It was quite sectarian, secluded and one sided in outlook. The spiritual ideals were lost sight of and vested interests were clinging hard to the form and letter, having altogether missed the spirit. Great enthusiasm was shown for religious rituals, mythological details and exclusive social conventions and customs so rigorously that result of all this was anything except commendable. One may feel sad to remember that in India, at that time, there was not a single Pandita or Indian scholar who could read or decipher the inscriptions of Asoka, Kharvele and Rudradaman. This one instance is sufficient to indicate how one sided and shallow the Sanskrit scholarship had grown just before the Western scholars took Sanskrit studies. The Western scholars, however, did not approach Sanskrit studies through bias for one religion or the other, or with some sectarian or sectional outlook. They pointed out that to have the whole view of ancient and medieval Indian culture the study of Sanskrit literature must be combined with the study not only of Prakrit and Pali languages and Literature, but