Sanskrit has only recently become known to Europe through the
researches of English and German Oriental scholars. It is now
acknowledged to be the auxiliary and foundation of all civilized
speech, and is important as being the language of an extensive
literature which records the life of a wonderful people from a remote
age nearly to the present time.
The ancient home of the Aryan, or Indo-European race, was in Central
Asia, whence many of its people migrated to the West, and became the
founders of the Persian, Greek and Roman Nations, besides settling in
Spain and England. Other offshoots of the original Aryans took their
lives in their hands and penetrated the passes of the Himalayas,
spreading all over India. Wherever they went, they seem to have held
themselves superior to the aboriginal people whom they found in
possession of the soil.
"The history of civilization," says a well-known authority on
literature, "is everywhere the history of the Aryan race. The
forefathers of the Greek and Roman, of the Englishman and the Hindu,
dwelt together in India, spoke the same language, and worshipped the
same gods. The languages of Europe and India are merely different forms
of the original Aryan speech. This is especially true of the words of
common family life. Father, Mother, brother, sister and widow, are
substantially the same in most of the Aryan languages whether spoken on
the banks of the Ganges, the Tiber or the Thames. The word daughter,
which occurs in nearly all of them, is derived from the Sanskrit word
signifying to draw milk, and preserves the memory of the time when the
daughter was the little milkmaid in the primitive Aryan household."
The Hindu language is founded on the Sanskrit, of which we may name the
books of the Vedas, 1500 B.C.
All the poetical works of Asia, China and Japan are taken almost
entirely from the Hindu, while in Southern Russia the meagre literature
of the Kalmucks is borrowed entirely from the same source. The
Ramayana, or great Hindu poem, must have had its origin in the
history-to-be of Christ. It has been translated into Italian and
published in Paris. The Hitopadesa, a collection of fables and
apologues, has been translated into more languages than any book except
the Bible. It has found its way all over the civilized world, and is
the model of the fables of all countries.
The dramas of Kalidasa, the Hindu Shakespeare, contain many episodes
borrowed from the great Epic poems. The Messenger Cloud of this poet is
not surpassed by any European writer of verse. The Ramayon and the
Mahabharata are the two great Epic poems of India, and they exceed in
conception and magnitude any of the Epic poems in the world, surpassing
the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Jerusalem Delivered. The Ramayon, of
seven Cantos, has twenty-five thousand verses, and the hero, Rama, in
his wanderings and misfortunes, is not unlike Ulysses. The Mahabharata
records the doings of gods, giants, and heroes, who are all fighting
against each other. It contains two hundred thousand verses, embodied
in eighteen Cantos, and is thought to be not the work of one man; but
different songs sung from the earliest ages by the people, and
gradually blended into one poem. In it we find the ancient traditions
which nearly all people possess, of a more free, active and primitive
state of nature, whose world of greatness and heroism has been
suppressed in later ages. Among the Hindustans there exists a religion
resembling in part that of Greece, with traces of the Egyptian; and yet
containing in itself many ideas, both moral and philosophical, which in
spite of dissimilarity in detail, is evidently akin to our doctrines of
the Christian religion. In fact, the resemblance between the Hindu and
Christian religion is so remarkable that some scholars think the Hindu
was taken from the Christian. It is more probable that it was of
greater antiquity, and that the similarity between them springs from
the seed of all truth and all Nature implanted in man by God. Indian
and Christian both teach regeneration. In the Indian creed, as soon as
the soul is touched with the love of divine things it is supposed to
drop its life of sin and become "new born."
In a higher region all these truths in the lower world which have to do
with divine things, are mysteriously akin to each other. It needs only
the first spark of light from above to make them instinct with life.
The Recluses or Gymnosophists of India are not unlike the first
Recluses of Egypt, and the first hermits of the desert in the Christian
era.
The doctrines of India first obtained a foothold in Europe through the
dogma of Metempsychosis. It was introduced into the Hellenes by
Pythagoras; but never became popular among the Greeks. This
Metempsychosis (or the transmigration of souls) was believed by the
Indians from the earliest period, and their whole history is built upon
it. A very ancient connection can be traced between India and Egypt,
manifested by Castes, which are found equally in both countries, and by
similiar Mythologies. When Alexander the Great invaded Northern India
from Persia, the Greeks found an Indian Mythology far more like their
own than the Persian or Hebrew. They thought they had met with the same
gods they had been accustomed to worship, though clothed in a different
form and color. They showed their faith in this discovery by the names
of the Indian Hercules and the Indian Bacchus, later so common among
them.
The worship of Vishnoo and Krishnoo in Hindostan differs very little
from the religion of Buddha and Fo which was established in China and
Thibet during the first century of Christianity. The former retained
caste, while the latter, following the teaching of Buddha, have
repudiated any class distinctions.
Decimal cyphers originated in Hindostan.