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Monier-Williams, Monier
Religious thought and Life in India (Band 1): Vedism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism — London, 1883

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0006
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vi Preface.

ethics worthy of Christianity; who composed the
Ramayana and Maha-bharata, poems in some respects
outrivalling the Iliad and the Odyssey; who invented
for themselves the science of grammar, arithmetic,
astronomy, logic, and who elaborated independently
six most subtle systems of philosophy. Above all,
the less inclined shall we be to stigmatize as " be-
nighted heathen " the authors of two religions, which—
however lamentably antagonistic to Christianity—are
at this moment professed by about half the human
race.

' We cannot, of course, sympathize with what is false
in the several creeds of Hindus, Buddhists, Jains,
Parsls, and Muslims. But we can consent to examine
them from their own point of view, we can study their
sacred books in their own languages—Sanskrit, Pali,
Prakrit, Zand, and Arabic—rather than in imperfect
English translations. We can pay as much de-
ference to the interpretations of their own commen-
tators as we expect to be accorded to our own
interpretation of the difficulties of our own Sacred
Scriptures. We can avoid denouncing in strong
language what we have never thoroughly investigated,
and do not thoroughly understand.

' Yes, I must speak out. It seems to me that the
general ignorance of our fellow-countrymen in regard
to the religions of India is often worse than a blank.
A man, learned in European lore, asked me the other
day whether the Hindus were not all Buddhists ? Of
course ignorance is associated with indifference. I
stayed in India with an eminent Indian civilian who
 
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