DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0004
iv Preface.
College, Haileybury—then the only training-ground
for the Indian Civil Service probationers.
In 1875 I published the first edition of Indian Wis-
dom1;' and it may be well to point out that, as the
present volume deals with the principal phases of the
Hindu religion, so the object of the former work was
to give a trustworthy general idea of the character and
contents of the sacred literature on which that religion
is founded. Since the publication of' Indian Wisdom'
I have made two journeys to India, and travelled
through the length and breadth of the Queen's eastern
empire. I felt that for a writer to be competent to
give a trustworthy account of the complicated religious
systems prevalent among our Indian fellow-subjects,
two requisites were needed;—first, that he should
have made a life-long study of their literature, and,
secondly, that he should have made personal inves-
tigations into the creeds and practices of the natives
of India in their own country, and, as far as possible,
in their own homes.
Even the most profound Orientalists who have
never come in contact with the Indian mind, except
in books, commit themselves to mischievous and mis-
1 A very energetic and useful Missionary, the late Rev. James Vaughan,
in his work called ' The Trident, the Crescent, and the Cross,' copied
from ' Indian Wisdom' a large number of my translations from Sanskrit
literature, and interspersed them everywhere throughout his account
of Hinduism without asking my leave, and without any marks of quo-
tation or references in his foot-notes. It is true he mentions my name
eulogistically in his Preface, but as many readers systematically slur
over prefatory remarks, and as some of my translations are reproduced
in the present volume, it becomes necessary to shelter myself from the
charge of literary larceny which might be brought against me by those
who know his book but have not read ' Indian Wisdom.1
College, Haileybury—then the only training-ground
for the Indian Civil Service probationers.
In 1875 I published the first edition of Indian Wis-
dom1;' and it may be well to point out that, as the
present volume deals with the principal phases of the
Hindu religion, so the object of the former work was
to give a trustworthy general idea of the character and
contents of the sacred literature on which that religion
is founded. Since the publication of' Indian Wisdom'
I have made two journeys to India, and travelled
through the length and breadth of the Queen's eastern
empire. I felt that for a writer to be competent to
give a trustworthy account of the complicated religious
systems prevalent among our Indian fellow-subjects,
two requisites were needed;—first, that he should
have made a life-long study of their literature, and,
secondly, that he should have made personal inves-
tigations into the creeds and practices of the natives
of India in their own country, and, as far as possible,
in their own homes.
Even the most profound Orientalists who have
never come in contact with the Indian mind, except
in books, commit themselves to mischievous and mis-
1 A very energetic and useful Missionary, the late Rev. James Vaughan,
in his work called ' The Trident, the Crescent, and the Cross,' copied
from ' Indian Wisdom' a large number of my translations from Sanskrit
literature, and interspersed them everywhere throughout his account
of Hinduism without asking my leave, and without any marks of quo-
tation or references in his foot-notes. It is true he mentions my name
eulogistically in his Preface, but as many readers systematically slur
over prefatory remarks, and as some of my translations are reproduced
in the present volume, it becomes necessary to shelter myself from the
charge of literary larceny which might be brought against me by those
who know his book but have not read ' Indian Wisdom.1