Pride of Hinduism - Views of foreigners

[talwan]

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Madame Alice Louis-Barthou writes: " I look upon the Occident (Europe) with abomination. It represents for me fog, grayness, chill, machinery, murderous science, factories with all the vices, the triumph of noise, of hustling, of ugliness...The Orient is calm, peace, beauty, color, mystery, charm, sunlight, joy, ease of life, and reverly: I find the exact opposite of our hateful and grotesque civilization..... If I had my way, I should have a wall built between the Orient and the Occident to keep the latter from poisoning the former; I should go and live where you can see clearly and where there are no Europeans."

 

[nannilam_balasubramanian]

Recently, I happened to meet a person in a Temple. He appears to be non-Indian.
But he was full of praise for India. He just came out to say, that by seeing all
the Temples (despite destruction of a few prior to independence), Culture, Vedas,
Upanishads, Agamas, Festivals, Religious Rites, Fulfillment of one's Karma etc.
there is nothing in the world that can be compared ancient Hinduism. Its strong
culture had made men and women of other countries to think of India and could even
vibrate the minds of other people with regard to disciplined life, humility,
righteousness, morality, etc. He further added that the Science and Maths, which
we all learn today, were discovered by the Rushis and Munivars of erstwhile India.
Aryabhata's name cannot be forgotten by anyone.

Balasubramanian
Ambattur

 

[talwan]

Professor H. G. (Hugh George) Rawlinson (1880 - )author of several books including India, a short cultural history, remarks that,

"almost all the theories, religious, philosophical, and mathematical, taught by the Pythagoreans were known in India in the sixth century B.C."

 

[talwan]

W. J. Grant in his book The Spirit of India says: "India indeed has a preciousness which a materialistic age is in danger of missing. Some day the fragrance of her thought will win the hearts of men. This grim chase after our own tails which marks the present age cannot continue for ever. The future contains a new human urge towards the real beauty and holiness of life. When it comes India will be searched by loving eyes and defended by knightly hands."

"The religion of the Hindus is rich in legend and stupendous allegory. It is a religion of great dignity and beauty. Its wrestlings with reality are as courageous as any in the whole history of mankind..' Indian thought has generally been contemplative, it has seldom been enamored of the material side of life."​

"In the realm of religious philosophy she has given to us the most searching examination of the ethical law the world is ever likely to have. No Greek was more splendid in his scientific fidelity than the quiet company of Indian thinkers who made the Upanishads and traced the whole beauteous outline of the Eastern spirit."​

"There are cities in India whose grace and charm are matched only by the sweetness of an immemorial religion. Nowhere else in the world have I been so exquisitely invaded by the mystic quality of life."​

"She is grave and old and stupendous. Her accents are for the calm and gracious. Her temples are laden with symbolism....and internal beauties. It is true, that India is royal...India has been royal at heart from her very foundations of her memory." ​

"Our sublimest delusion is that India is backward. This predicates, of course, that we are progressive. If backwardness and progress depend on the rate at which one can gobble up vanities perhaps India does not need our aid.....India's devotion to being good rather than being clever comes nearer the heart of a true civilization. Cleverness dies on the tongue like a social pleasantry, goodness echoes round the universe in an un extinguishable reality. We in the West are too busy to see that science without soul is like words without meaning."​

"India's greatness is in her humility; her weakness is her strength. She is both wiser and more effective than the West, for she does not declare that reform is not a new shirt on Sunday morning but a clean heart at the Throne of Grace. Justice without spirit of justice is as much of an achievement as a river without its water."​

(source: The Spirit of India - By W. J. Grant London published by B. T. Batsford Ltd.1933 preface and p. vi - 58)
​

 

[talwan]

Dr. A. L. Basham, one of the leading authority of ancient Indian culture and author of The Wonder That Was India "Our over-all impression is that no other part of the ancient world were the relations of man and man, and of man and the state, so fair and humane. In no other early civilization were slaves so few in number, and in no other ancient law book are their rights so well protected as in the Arthashastra....
In all her history of warfare, Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of noncombatants...To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilization is its humanity....Our second general impression of ancient India is that her people enjoyed life, passionately delighting both in the things of the senses and the things of the spirit...India was a cheerful land, whose people, each finding a niche in a complex and slowly evolving social system, reached a higher level of kindliness and gentleness in their mutual relations than any other nation of antiquity. For this, as well as for her great achievements in religion, literature, art, science and mathematics, one European student at least would record his admiration of her ancient culture."

 

[talwan]

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was born in the British Embassy in Paris and was educated in England and Germany. After medical school, a successful attempt at writing led him to widespread fame for his plays and novels. Author of several books including "Of Human Bondage" and " The Moon and Sixpence."

When Maugham arrived in India in 1938, he was hoping to find some inspiration for a novel he planned to write incorporating Hindu philosophy. Arriving in Chennai, he met Ramana Maharshi. This meeting inspired him to write his classic " The Razor's Edge". He derived this title from a passage in the Katha-Upanishad - (Kshurasya Dhara):​

" Like the sharp edge of a razor, the sages say, is the path, Narrow it is, and difficult to tread." ​

His book Razor's Edge reveals his clear grasp of Hindu philosophy. The main character of the book seeks in the end relief in India from the horrors of war and gains a sense of being at one with the Absolute, through the Indian philosophical system known as Vedanta.

(Two movies and more than six editions of the book have appeared since 1944, with sales in the millions of copies.) ​

(source: 1940 Vedantic Novel Still a Hit - Hinduism Today - July/August 2000 p 54-57).​

 

[talwan]

Marcus Leatherdale Montreal born photojournalist has had a long love affair with India. To him Hinduism and India are almost synonymous. What he likes about Hinduism is that its very emotional, colorful and joyful. Leatherdalenotes:

The photojournalist Marcus Leatherdale has also had a long love affair with India. For many years he rented a house in Benares, spending half the year there on the bustling ghats, making friends with Brahmins and boatmen alike. He speaks some Hindi and calls himself an 'adha' Hindustani. He has shot images of maharanis and circus performers and ordinary Indians. His current focus is on the tribal folks who are an almost endangered species in India.​

"You'd have to be brain dead to live in India and not be affected by Hinduism. It's not like Christianity in America, where you feel it only on Sunday mornings … if you go to church at all. Hinduism is an on-going daily procedure. You live it, you breathe it."
​

 

[talwan]

Roger-Pol Droit ( )French philosopher, and Le Monde journalist, recently wrote in his book L'oubli de l'Inde. Une amnésie philosophique - "The Forgetfulness of India, that:

"The Greeks loved so much Indian philosophy that Demetrios Galianos had even translated the Bhagavad-Gita". There is absolutely not a shadow of a doubt that the Greeks knew all about Indian philosophy." ​

(source: Arise O'India - By Francois Gautier ISBN 81-241-0518-9 Har-Anand Publications 2000 p. 22).
​

 

[nannilam_balasubramanian]

The principle and object of Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) is to enlighten themselves,
love and render service to the Almighty Supreme Power - God. The main code and
direction, purpose of Hinduism is to have unconditional & deep and abiding Bhakthi
or devotion towards God. Some of the statistics state that more than one billion or
so Hindus are living in the world and of them around three millions or so are residing
in the States alone. It would not be out of place to mention that Hindu Society is the only
significant society in the world today, which exhibits an interruption free cultural
existence and functioning since time immemorial without any transformation despite the
fact of invasion into the Indian continent. This is praised by many foreigners at
different levels in their references.

Balasubramanian
Ambattur

 

[talwan]

Herman Melville (1819-1891) was the great American novelist, and author of Moby Dick.or The Whale. Melville’s references to Hindu myth and thought, however, peripheral to his works some have thought them to be, are so numerous that there can be no doubt about his extensive knowledge of Hinduism. That Melville should give a fairly detailed description of the story of Vishnu in two places is itself an indication that he did not intend it to be read and forgotten. While trying to present the “true form of this whale,” he adverts to those “curious imaginary portraits of him” and describes the Hindu whale as the most ancient portrait available in the world:

“Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting to the whale’s is to be found in the famous cavern pagoda of Elephanta, in India. …The Hindoo whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as the Matse-Avatar.”

 

[talwan]

Jean-Sylvain Bailly (1736–93) 18th century French astronomer and politician. His works on astronomy and on the history of science (notably the Essai sur la théorie des satellites de Jupiter) were distinguished both for scientific interest and literary elegance and earned him membership in the French Academy, the Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Inscriptions.

Jean-Sylvain Bailly said:

"The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19-th century). The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as the discovered by Tycho Brahe - a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria and also to the Arabs who followed the calculations of the school... "The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greek, Romans and - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge."
​

 

[talwan]

R. Gordon Milburn ( ) claims that:

"Christianity in India needs the Vedanta...as constituting what might be called an Ethnic Old Testament " in Christian Vedantism - Indian Interpreter 1913. ​

(source: Christian Vedantism - Indian Interpreter - 1913).
​

 

[T.S.Sankara Narayanan]

My own Recent Experience with Foreigner's Opinion on Hinduism :

Few months back I wrote about Kasi Visweswara Swamy Temple at Kadugudi Near White Field Bangalore. We are undertaking the Re Building work under my supervision with Sthapathy Shri M.Palanichami and it is going on.

The Archaga of this Temple told me that it is about 1750 years old.We suffered a lot to get permission to demolish the old Structure and the govt process took about 4 to 5 months and now we got it.

We demolished the old structure.At that time a Foreign Lady ( Germany ) and a Devotee of Sathya Sai came and visited this Temple.She took some videos of the demolished temple.She also told me that she is Exploring Archaeology and she told me after verifying the Stones that The Temple and Construction must be 5000 years old and may not be like Archaga's saying that it is 1750 years.

She took videos of almost all important stones and promised to meet me after some time.

Totally she spent about 3 to 4 hours in that temple.

 

[talwan]

ene Guenon (1886-1951)better known in Egypt as Sheikh 'Abd Al Wahid Yahya. But at the age of 21 he was already in Paris, when he came in contact with the Advaita Vedanta school. By the time he was nearly 30, his phenomenal intelligence had enabled him to see exactly what was wrong with the modern West.

He wasone of the best-known European traditionalist authors on various civilizations, writes in his book Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines says: ​

" In India, we are in the presence of a tradition which is purely metaphysical in its essence.....A fact which stands out much more clearly here than in the Semitic tradition, chiefly owing to the absence of the religious point of view,....is the complete subordination of the various particular orders relatively to metaphysics, that is to say relatively to the realm of universal principles."
​

 

[talwan]

Hans Torwesten (1944 - ) a native of Germany, studied art in Vienna and Indian philosophy, meditation, and yoga in England. A writer, lecturer, yoga teacher, and painter, he now lives in Austria. In his book Vedanta - Heart of Hinduism he writes:
"A fair number of leading physicists and biologists have found parallels between modern science and Hindu ideas. In America, many writers such as J. D. Salinger (An Adventure in Vedanta: J.D. Salinger's the Glass Family), Henry Miller, Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, and Christopher Isherwood, were in contact with the Vedanta. Most of them came from elevated intellectual circles which rejected the dogmatism of the Christian Churches yet longed for spirituality and satisfactory answers to the fundamental questions of existence. In Vedanta, they found a wide-open, universal, and philosophically oriented religion where even the penetrating scientific mind could find something to its taste".

"To the Hindu, shruti is what cannot be thought up by the limited human intellect, but is of God. It is what is forever valid, never changes, is not dependent on the limited capacity for understanding of any one historical person. The Hindu for this reason is proud not to need a historical founder. The founder and foundation of the Vedas and the Upanishads is the Brahman itself, is what is indestructible and timeless."​

"The Upanishads are indeed thoroughly suffused with the spirit of transcendence."
​

 

[talwan]

Mark Tully (?) former BBC correspondent in India, author of several books, including No Full Stops in India and The Heart of India, said: But I do profoundly believe that India needs to be able to say with pride, "Yes, our civilization has a Hindu base to it."

"The genius of Hinduism, and the very reason of its survival for so long, was that it does not stand up and fight."

It changes and adapts and modernizes and its absorbs and that is the scientific and proper way of going about it as well."

" Why is Christianity in so much trouble at the moment? Because it is so difficult for it to adapt," says the celebrated television journalist. Saying that Hinduism would prove to be the religion of the next Millennium."
So you have the resources in Hinduism, you have the teachings, you have the history that shows you can do it. You can revive your religion in such a way that it does not become confrontational (which is a common practice) but does something unique by becoming adaptive and adapting itself to the needs of the time. India must be able to be proud of Hinduism.

 

[talwan]

Jaipur bazaar in Rajasthan, India.​

***​

Dale M Riepe (1918 - ) was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at The State University of New York at Buffalo and he says in his book The Philosophy of India and its impact on American Thought
​

"If the American empire meets with the fate of the British, if Americans cannot resolve their life-and-death struggle with the intelligent use of technology, if the alienation in American society cannot be alleviated, then a new attitude may gradually replace the 300 years reign of optimism. Such eventualities may lead to more philosophers turning to contemplation, meditation and increased poring over the Hindu and Buddhist scriptures."​

"Western thinkers, through their study of Indian philosophies and religions have "discovered a new technical philosophy of undreamed-of complexity and ingenuity" and this contact has expanded the imagination, increased the number of categories, made possible new studies in the history of logic, revealed new sensations and has driven the mind back to its origin and out of its possibilities."
​

 

[nannilam_balasubramanian]

Sanata Dharma within itself holds a treasure of spiritual philosophies and
practices. Further our Vedic teachings include spiritual knowledge for the
needs of the people, whatever the level may be. We see practically the
growing influence of Vedic culture and appreciated by the foreigners.

Balasubramanian
Ambattur

 

[talwan]

Clarence Edward Dutton (1841-1912) a captain of ordinance in the U.S. army, geologist-poet and a Yale man, Dutton was deeply influenced by the philosophies of India. It was Dutton who likened the snow-covered peaks of the canyon walls to the Hindu gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. There is even a Hindu amphitheatre which Dutton likened to the "profusion and richness which suggests an Oriental character.
It would certainly not be inaccurate to suggest that Dutton must have been drawn by the Himalayan symbolism of Vedic philosophy to have named the finest butte of the Kaibab division the Vishnu Temple and the grandest of all buttes as the Shiva Temple. For in Hindu philosophy Vishnu is attributed the aspects of preserving the world and to Shiva the aspect also of the destroyer.
On the 7,650-foot Shiva Temple he wrote:
"The Shiva Temple the grandest of all, and most majestic in aspect....All round it are side gorges sunk to a depth nearly as profound as that of the main channel...In such a stupendous scene of wreck, it seemed as if the fabled 'destroyer' might find an abode not wholly uncongenial." he observed.
Dutton describes the magnificence of what he sees of the Eastern Cloisters and Shiva's Temple as follows:
"As we contemplate these objects we find it quite impossible to realize their magnitude. Not only are we deceived, but we are conscious that we are deceived, and yet we can not conquer the deception.....The eastern Cloister’s is nearer than the western, its distance being about a mile and a half. It seems incredible that it can be so much as one-third that distance. Its altitude is from 3500 to 4000 feet, but any attempt to estimate the altitude by means of usual impressions is felt at once to be hopeless. There is not stadium. Dimensions mean nothing to the senses, and all that we are conscious of in this respect is a troubled scene of immensity."

 

[talwan]

George Hendrick ( ? ) wrote in the Introduction to reprint edition of Charles Wilkins Bhagavad Gita. He noted about the Bhagwad Gita and its :

"antiquarian charm and historical importance."

 

[talwan]

Charles Johnston ( ? ) a retired English civil servant in Bengal and a Sanskrit scholar, brought forth a translation in 1908 in Flushing, New York of the Bhagavad Gita: "The Songs of the Master." Johnston paid tribute in his lengthy General Introduction to the historical and eternal significance of the scripture: "The Bhagavad Gita is one of the noblest scriptures of India, one of the deepest scriptures of the world. . . . a symbolic scripture, with many meanings, containing many truths. . . . [that] forms the living heart of the Eastern wisdom. "
(source: Bhagavad Gita: "The Song Of the Master" - By Charles Johnston, trans. (Flushing, New York: Charles Johnston, 1908, pp. vi-xvii).

 

[talwan]

Professor Louis Renou (1896-1966) French Indologists, author of several books including Hinduism, Civilization in Ancient India, L'Inde fondamentale. He wrote in 1962:

"Truth is for Hinduism an indivisible treasure; spiritual immediacy is widely distributed, the mystic path is open to everyone. In its purest forms, this religion becomes a type of wisdom, that wisdom which impressed the ancient Greeks when they visited India and which could be of some fruitfulness again for our blase cultures. It is as wisdom that we should like to define Hinduism rather than by the equivocal term spirituality."
​

 

[talwan]

Georg Feuerstein is a specialist in the Sanskrit literature of yoga and has written considerable number of articles on various aspects of Indian thought. He has written various books including the Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy, and Practice and ' The Introduction to the Bhagavad Gita: Its philosophy and Cultural Setting. He observes: " From earliest times Indian man has shown a distinct predilection for philosophical speculation about the nature of man and the universe. Long before the rise of Greek thought, he grappled with the profoundest problems of philosophy. By the time the Gita was complied, philosophical enquiry had already reached a noteworthy degree of maturity, complexity and coherence. The musings of the early Vedic seers had developed in depth and breadth as well as in clarity and precision."
"The dry, academically stilted approach of contemporary Indology, with little interest in the inner meaning of its subject matter, becomes singularly apparent in the Gita, which is brimming with significance."

 

[talwan]

Philostratus, (AD 220) ancient Greek writer, son-in-law of Flavius Philostratus. Philostratus puts in the mouth of Apollonius of Tyana these words:

"All wish to live in the nearness of God, but only the Hindus bring it to pass." ​

(source: Hinduism and Buddhism - By Sir Charles Eliot volume 1 p. lxii).
​

 

[talwan]

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, (1850-1919)famous American poet and journalist who is perhaps best remembered for verse tinged with an eroticism that was still unconventional for her time. Wilcox poems have been collected in volumes such as Poems of Pleasure (1897) and Maurine and Other Poems (1888), states that: " India - the land of Vedas, the remarkable works contains not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all are known to the seers who founded the Vedas."