It is unfortunate, no doubt, that this meeting of Oriental scholars should have taken place at a time when the treasures of the Indian Museum are still in their temporary exile; yet, if they share in the regret felt by every friend of India, at the delay in the building of a new museum, worthy both of England and of India, they will also carry away the conviction, that such delay is simply due to a desire to do the best that can be done, in order to carry out in the end something little short of that magnificent scheme of an Indian Institute, drawn by the experienced hand of Mr. Forbes Watson.
And now, in conclusion, I have to express my own gratitude for the liberality both of the Directors of the old East India Company and of the present Secretary of State for India in Council, for having enabled me to publish that work the last sheet of which I am able to present to this Meeting to-day, the “Rig-Veda, with the Commentary of Sâyaṇâcârya.” It is the oldest book of the Aryan world, but it is also one of the largest, and its publication would have been simply impossible without the enlightened liberality of the Indian Government. For twenty-five years I find, that taking the large and small editions of the Rig-Veda together, I have printed every year what would make a volume of about six hundred pages octavo. Such a publication would have ruined any bookseller, for it must be confessed, that there is little that is attractive in the Veda, nothing that could excite general interest. From an æsthetic point of view, no one would care for the hymns of the Rig-Veda, and I can well understand how, in the beginning of our century, even so discriminating a scholar as Colebrooke could express his opinion that, “The Vedas are too voluminous for a complete translation, and what they contain would hardly reward the labor of the reader, much less that of the translator. The ancient dialect in which they are composed, and specially that of the three first Vedas, is extremely difficult and obscure; and, though curious, as the parent of a more polished and refined language, its difficulties must long continue to prevent such an examination of the whole Vedas, as would be requisite for extracting all that is remarkable and important in those voluminous works. But they well deserve to be occasionally consulted by the Oriental scholar.” Nothing shows the change from the purely æsthetic to the purely scientific interest in the language and literature of India more clearly than the fact that for the last twenty-five years the work of nearly all Sanskrit scholars has been concentrated on the Veda. When some thirty years ago I received my first lessons in Sanskrit from Professor Brockhaus, whom I am happy and proud to see to-day among us, there were but few students who ventured to dive into the depths of Vedic literature. To-day among the Sanskrit scholars whom Germany has sent to us—Professors Stenzler, Spiegel, Weber, Hang, Pertsch, Windisch—there is not one who has not won his laurels on the field of Vedic scholarship. In France also a new school of Sanskrit students has sprung up who have done most excellent work for the interpretation of the Veda, and who bid fair to rival the glorious school of French Orientalists at the beginning of this century, both by their persevering industry and by that “sweetness and light” which seems to be the birthright of their nation. But, I say again, there is little that is beautiful, in our sense of the word, to be found in the hymns of the Rig-Veda, and what little there is, has been so often dwelt on, that quite an erroneous impression as to the real nature of Vedic poetry has been produced in the mind of the public. My old friend, the Dean of St. Paul’s, for instance, in some thoughtful lectures which he delivered this year on the “Sacred Poetry of Early Religions,” has instituted a comparison between the Psalms and the hymns of the Veda, and he arrives at the conclusion that the Psalms are superior to the Vedic hymns. No doubt they are, from the point of view which he has chosen, but the chief value of these hymns lies in the fact that they are so different from the Psalms, or, if you like, that they are so inferior to the Psalms. They are Aryan, the Psalms Semitic; they belong to a primitive and rude state of society, the Psalms, at least most of them, are contemporaneous with or even later than the heydays of the Jewish monarchy. This strange misconception of the true character of the Vedic hymns seemed to me to become so general, that when some years ago I had to publish the first volume of my translation, I intentionally selected a class of hymns which should in no way encourage such erroneous opinions. It was interesting to watch the disappointment. What, it was said, are these strange, savage, grotesque invocations of the Storm-gods, the inspired strains of the ancient sages of India? Is this the wisdom of the East? Is this the primeval revelation? Even scholars of high reputation joined in the outcry, and my friends hinted to me that they would not have wasted their life on such a book.
Now, suppose a geologist had brought to light the bones of a fossil animal, dating from a period anterior to any in which traces of animal life had been discovered before, would any young lady venture to say by way of criticism, “Yes, these bones are very curious, but they are not pretty!” Or suppose a new Egyptian statue had been discovered, belonging to a dynasty hitherto unrepresented by any statues, would even a school-boy dare to say, “Yes, it is very nice, but the Venus of Milo is nicer?” Or suppose an old MS. is brought to Europe, do we find fault with it, because it is not neatly printed? If a chemist discovers a new element, is he pitied because it is not gold? If a botanist writes on germs, has he to defend himself, because he does not write on flowers? Why, it is simply because the Veda is so different from what it was expected to be, because it is not like the Psalms, not like Pindar, not like the Bhagavadgîtâ, it is because it stands alone by itself, and reveals to us the earliest germs of religious thought, such as they really were; it is because it places before us a language, more primitive than any we knew before; it is because its poetry is what you may call savage, uncouth, rude, horrible, it is for that very reason that it was worth while to dig and dig till the old buried city was recovered, showing us what man was, what we were, before we had reached the level of David, the level of Homer, the level of Zoroaster, showing us the very cradle of our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. I am not disappointed with the Veda, and I shall conclude my address with the last verses of the last hymn, which you have now in your hands,—verses which thousands of years ago may have been addressed to a similar meeting of Aryan fellow-men, and which are not inappropriate to our own:—
Sám gacchadhvam sám vadadhvam sám vaḥ mánâṃsi jànatâm,
Devâh bhâgám yáthâ pû́rve[7] saṃjânânấḥ upấsate,
Samânáh mántraḥ sámitiḥ samánî́ samânám mánaḥ sahá cittám eshâm,
Samnám mántram abhí mantraye vaḥ samânéna vaḥ havíshâ juhomi.
Samânî́ vaḥ ấkûtiḥ samânấ hṛdayâni vaḥ,
Samânám astu vaḥ mánaḥ yáthâ vaḥ súsaha ásati.
“Come together! Speak together! Let your minds be concordant—the gods by being concordant receive their share, one after the other. Their word is the same, their counsel is the same, their mind is the same, their thoughts are at one; I address to you the same word, I worship you with the same sacrifice. Let your endeavor be the same! Let your hearts be the same! Let your mind be the same, that it may go well with you.”