Indology, a colonial euphemism to subvert Indian history, culture and civilisation
Much of what Indian students learn today about ancient India derives from it. Most of us Indians were brought up to believe that the western scholars beginning with Sir William Jones and his discovery of Sanskrit, culminating in the work of the Anglo German F. Max Muller, a forgotten figure in Europe but revered in India as a paragon of virtue promoted by the German govt. via the Max Muller bhavans all over India.
To understand how the current notions about ancient India and its Aryan creators were discovered, we need to go back to the Calcutta Judge Sir William Jones in the eighteenth century. He recorded that Indian languages especially Sanskrit was related to European languages and to account for this F. Max Muller ‘later’ proposed the Aryan invasion theory. Other factors that promoted or readily accepted this version were colonial politics and Christian missionary interests.
Max Muller assigned a date for the invasion as 1500 BC and 1200 BC for the composition of the Rigveda. The reason for this firm belief unsupported by any archaeological evidence was the Biblical chronology that assigned 9:00 am 23rd October 4004 BC for the creation of the world and 2448 BC for the Noah’s flood. Max Muller’s facility with the Vedas and the Sanskrit language was likened by the great Dayanand Saraswati to a “toddler learning to walk”.
Indology gave the British a platform to build theories to justify their rule in India as reunited Aryan brothers who were working to uplift them.
Ref: Sarasvati and the Vedic Civilisation by NS Rajaram
Please read more from the same series
http://sowingseedsofthought.blogspot.com/2010/11/synopses-from-book-sarasvati-and-vedic_02.html
No comments:
Post a Comment