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PARERGA AND PARALIPOMENA: SHORT PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS |
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[b]CHAPTER 16: Some Remarks on Sanskrit Literature[/b]
§ 183
Much as I admire and respect the religious and philosophical works of Sanskrit literature, only rarely have I been able to find any pleasure in the poetical works. Indeed, at times it seemed to me that these were as inelegant and monstrous as is the sculpture of the same peoples. Even their dramatic works I appreciate mainly on account of the most instructive elucidations and verifications of the religious belief and morals which they contain. All this may be due to the fact that, by its very nature, poetry is untranslatable. For in it thoughts and words have grown together as firmly and intimately as pars uterina et pars loetalis placentae, [1] so that we cannot substitute foreign equivalents for the words without affecting the ideas. Yet all metre and rhyme are in reality a compromise between language and thought; but by its nature such a compromise can be carried out only on the native soil of the thought, not on the foreign ground to which it might be transplanted, and certainly not on one as barren as are usually the minds of translators. After all, what greater contrast can there be than that between the free effusion of a poet's inspiration which already appears clothed automatically and instinctively in metre and rhyme and the translator's painful, cold, and calculating distress as he counts the syllables and looks for the rhymes? Moreover, as there is now in Europe no lack of poetical works that directly appeal to us, but a very great dearth of correct metaphysical views, I am of the opinion that translators from Sanskrit should devote their efforts much less to poetry and much more to the Vedas, Upanishads, and philosophical works.
§ 184
When I consider how difficult it is, with the aid of the best and most carefully trained scholars and of the excellent philological resources achieved in the course of centuries, to arrive at a really precise, accurate, and vivid appreciation of Greek and Roman authors whose languages are those of our predecessors in Europe and are the mothers of tongues still living ; when, on the other hand, I think of Sanskrit as a language spoken in remote India thousands of years ago and that the means for learning it are still relatively very imperfect; finally, when I consider the impression made on me by the translations from Sanskrit of European scholars, apart from very few exceptions, then I am inclined to suspect that perhaps our Sanskrit scholars do not understand their texts any better than do the fifth-form boys of our own schools their Greek texts. Since, however, these scholars are not boys but men of knowledge and understanding, it is possible that on the whole they make out fairly well the sense of what they really understand, whereby much may, of course, creep in ex ingenio. [2] It is even much worse with regard to the Chinese of European sinologists who often grope about in total darkness. Of this we are convinced when we see how even the most painstaking correct one another and demonstrate one another's colossal mistakes. Instances of this kind are frequently found in the Foe Kue Ki of Abel Remusat.
On the other hand, when I reflect that Sultan Mohammed Dara Shikoh, brother of Aurangzeb, was born and brought up in India, was a scholar and thinker, and craved for knowledge; that he, therefore, probably understood Sanskrit as well as we understand Latin; and that, in addition, a number of the most learned pundits collaborated with him, this predisposes me to a high opinion of his Persian translation of the Upanishads of the Veda. Further, when I see with what profound veneration, in keeping with the subject, Anquetil-Duperron handled this Persian translation, rendering it word for word into Latin, accurately keeping to the Persian syntax in spite of the Latin grammar, and content merely to accept the Sanskrit words left untranslated by the Sultan in order to explain these in a glossary, I read this translation with the fullest confidence, which is at once delightfully confirmed. For how thoroughly redolent of the holy spirit of the Vedas is the Oupnekhat! How deeply stirred is he who, by diligent and careful reading, is now conversant with the Persian-Latin rendering of this incomparable book! How imbued is every line with firm, definite, and harmonious significance! From every page we come across profound, original, and sublime thoughts, whilst a lofty and sacred earnestness pervades the whole. Here everything breathes the air of India and radiates an existence that is original and akin to nature. And oh, how the mind is here cleansed and purified of all Jewish superstition that was early implanted in it, and of all philosophy that slavishly serves this! With the exception of the original text, it is the most profitable and sublime reading that is possible in the world; it has been the consolation of my life and will be that of my death. With regard to certain suspicions that have been raised about the genuineness of the Oupnekhat, I refer to my Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics, 'Basis of Ethics', § 22, second footnote.
Now if I compare this with the European translations of sacred Indian texts or of Indian philosophers, then (with very few exceptions, such as the Bhagavadgita by Schlegel and some passages in Colebrooke's translations from the Vedas) these have the opposite effect on me. They furnish us with periods whose sense is universal, abstract, vague, and often indefinite, and which are disjointed and incoherent. I get a mere outline of the ideas of the original text with little pieces of padding, wherein I notice something foreign. Contradictions appear from time to time and everything is modern, empty, dull, flat, destitute of meaning, and occidental. It is Europeanized, Anglicized, Frenchified, or even (what is worst of all) enveloped in a fog and mist of German. Thus instead of furnishing us with a clear and definite meaning, they give us mere words that are diffuse and high-sounding. For example, even the most recent by Roer in the Bibliotheca Indica, No. 41, Calcutta, 1853, is one where we really recognize the German who, as such, is already accustomed to writing one period after another and then leaves it to others to think in them something clear and definite. Only too often is there in them also a trace of the foetor Judaicus. All this lessens my confidence in such translations especially when I remember that the translators pursue their studies as a profession, whereas the noble Anquetil-Duperron did not seek a living here, but was urged to undertake this work merely through love of science and knowledge. I also reflect that Sultan Dara Shikoh's reward was to have his head cut off by his imperial brother Aurangzeb, in majorem Dei gloriam. [3] I am firmly convinced that a real knowledge of the Upanishads and thus of the true and esoteric dogmas of the Vedas, can at present be obtained only from the Oupnekhat; we may have read through the other translations and yet have no idea of the subject. It also appears that Sultan Dara Shikoh had at his disposal much better and more complete Sanskrit manuscripts than had the English scholars.
§ 185
The Sanhita of the Veda certainly cannot be by the same authors or from the same period as that of the Upanishad. Of this we are fully convinced when we read the first book of the Sanhita of the Rig- Veda, translated by Rosen and that of the Sama-Veda translated by Stevenson. Thus both consist of prayers and rituals that breathe a somewhat crude Sabianism. Here Indra is the supreme god who is invoked and with him the sun, moon, winds, and fire. The most servile adulations, together with requests for cows, food, drink, and victory, are repeated to these in all the hymns, and for this purpose sacrifices are made to them. These and donations to the priests are the only virtues that are commended. As Ormuzd (from whom Jehovah subsequently came) is really Indra (according to 1.J. Schmidt) and moreover Mithra is the sun, so the fire worship of the Guebres came to them with Indra. The Upanishad is, as I have said, the product of the highest human wisdom and is intended only for learned Brahmans; and so Anquetil renders 'Upanishad' by the words secretum tegendum. [4] The Sanhita, on the other hand, is exoteric; although indirectly it is for the people, since its contents are liturgy and thus public prayers and sacrificial rituals. Accordingly, the Sanhita affords us exceedingly insipid reading, to judge from the specimens already mentioned. For in his essay On the Religious Ceremonies if the Hindus, Colebrooke has certainly translated hymns from other books of the Sanhita, which breathe a spirit akin to the Upanishad, in particular the fine hymn in the second essay: 'The Embodied Spirit', and so on, a translation of which I gave in § 115.
§ 186
At the time when the great rock-temples were being cut in India, the art of writing had possibly not yet been invented and the numerous bands of priests dwelling in them were the living receptacles of the Vedas, of which each priest or each school knew a portion by heart and handed it down, as was done by the Druids. Later the Upanishads were composed in those very temples and thus in the most dignified surroundings.
§ 187
The Samkhya philosophy which is regarded as the forerunner of Buddhism, and which in Wilson's translation we have before us in extenso in the Karika of Ishvara Krishna (although always through a cloud on account of the imperfection of even this translation), is interesting and instructive. For the principal dogmas of all Indian philosophy, such as the necessity for salvation from a tragic existence, transmigration according to deeds, knowledge as the fundamental condition of salvation, and so on, are presented to us in all their fullness and completeness and with that lofty earnestness with which they have been considered in India for thousands of years.
Nevertheless, we see the whole of this philosophy impaired by a false fundamental idea, namely the absolute dualism between Prakriti and Purusha. But this is also the very point wherein the Samkhya differs from the Vedas. Prakriti is evidently the natura naturansS and at the same time matter in itself, in other words, without any form, such as ismerely conceived and not intuitively perceived. So understood, it can be regarded as actually identical with the natura naturans in so far as it gives birth to everything. Purusha, however, is the subject of knowing; for it is the mere spectator who is inactive and perceives. Yet the two are now taken to be absolutely different from, and independent of, each other, whereby the explanation why Prakriti toils and struggles for the salvation of Purusha proves to be inadequate (1.60). Further, in the whole work, it is taught that the salvation of Purusha is the final goal; on the other hand, it is suddenly Prakriti that is to be saved (II. 62, 63). All these contradictions would disappear if we had a common root for Prakriti and Purusha to which everything pointed, even in spite of Kapila; or if Purusha were a modification of Prakriti, thus if somehow or other the dualism were abolished. To give any sense and meaning to the thing, I can see nothing but the will in Prakriti and the subject of knowing in Purusha.
A peculiar feature of pedantry and narrowness in the Samkhya is the system of numbers, the summation and enumeration of qualities and attributes. This, however, appears to be customary in India, for the very same thing is done in the Buddhist scriptures.
§ 188
The moral meaning of metempsychosis in all Indian religions is not merely that in a subsequent rebirth we have to atone for every wrong we commit, but also that we must regard every wrong befalling us as thoroughly deserved through our misdeeds in a former existence.
§ 189
That the three upper castes are called twice born may yet be explained, as is usually suggested, from the fact that the investiture with the sacred thread which is conferred on the youths of those castes when they come of age is, so to speak, a second birth. But the real reason is that only in consequence of great merits in a previous life does a man come to be born in those castes; and that he must, therefore, have existed in such a life as a human being. On the other hand, whoever is born in a lower caste, or even in the lowest, may have previously been even an animal.
You laugh at the aeons and kalpas of Buddhism! Christianity, of course, has taken up a standpoint, whence it surveys a brief span of time. Buddhism's standpoint is one that presents it with the infinity of time and space, which then becomes its theme.
Just as the Lalitavistara, to begin with, was fairly simple and natural, but became more complicated and supernatural with every new edition it underwent in each of the subsequent councils, so did the same thing happen to the dogma itself whose few simple and sublime precepts gradually became jumbled, confused, and complicated through detailed discussions, spatial and temporal representations, personifications, empirical localizations, and so on. For the minds of the masses like it so, in that they want to indulge in fanciful pursuits and are not satisfied with what is simple and abstract.
The Brahmanistic dogmas and distinctions of Brahm and Brahma, of Paramatma and Jivatma, Hiranya-Garbha, Prajapati, Purusha, Prakriti, and the like (these are admirably and briefly expounded in Obry's excellent book Du Nirvana indien 1856), are at bottom merely mythological fictions, made for the purpose of presenting objectively that which has essentially and absolutely only a subjective existence. For this reason, the Buddha dropped them and knows of nothing except Samsara and Nirvana. For the more jumbled, confused, and complex the dogmas became, the more mythological they were. The Yogi or Sannyasi best understands who methodically assumes the right posture, withdraws into himself all his senses, and forgets the entire world, himself included. What is then still left in his consciousness is primordial being. But this is more easily said than done.
The depressed state of the Hindus, who were once so highly cultured, is the result of the terrible oppression which they suffered for seven hundred years at the hands of the Mohammedans who tried forcibly to convert them to Islam. Now only one-eighth of the population of India is Mohammedan. (Edinburgh Review, January 1858.)
§ 190
The passages lib. III, c. 20 and lib. VI, c. II in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana are also indications that the Egyptians (Ethiopians), or at any rate their priests, came from India. It is probable that the mythology of the Greeks and Romans is just as remotely related to the Indian as are Greek and Latin to Sanskrit, and as is the Egyptian mythology to both. (Is Coptic from the Japhetic or Semitic group of languages?) Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are probably Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. The latter has a trident whose object is unexplained in the case of Poseidon. The Nile key, crux ansata, [6] the sign of Venus [x], is just the lingam and yoni of the followers of Shiva. Osiris or Isiris is possibly Ishvara, Lord and God. Egyptians and Indians worshipped the lotus.
Might not Janus (about whom Schelling* gave a university lecture and whom he declared to be the primary and original One) be Yama the god of death who has two and sometimes four faces? In time of war the portals of death are opened. Perhaps Prajapati is Japheth.
The goddess Anna Purna of the Hindus (Langles, Monuments de l' Hindoustan, vol. ii, p. 107) is certainly the Anna Perenna of the Romans. Baghis, a nickname of Shiva, reminds one of the seer Bakis (ibid., vol. i, p. 178). In the Sakuntala (Act VI, end p. 131) the name Divespetir occurs as a nickname of Indra; this is obviously Diespiter. [7]
There is much to be said in favour of the identity of the Buddha with Woden; according to Langles (Monuments, vol. ii) Wednesday (Wodensday) is sacred to [x] Mercury and the Buddha. Corban, in the Oupnekhat sacrificium, occurs in St. Mark 7:11: [x] ([x]), Latin: Corban, i.e. munus Deo dicatum. [8] But the following is the most important. The planet [x] Mercury is sacred to the Buddha, is to a certain extent identified with him, and Wednesday is Buddha's day. Now Mercury is the son of Maya, and Buddha was the son of Maya the Queen. This cannot be pure chance! 'Here lies a minstrel' say the Swabians. See, however, Manual of Budhism, p. 354, note, and Asiatic Researches, vol, i, p. 162.
Spence Hardy (Eastern Monachism, p. 122) reports that the robes that are to be presented to the priests at a certain ceremony must be woven and made up in one day. Herodotus, lib. II, c. 122, gives a similar account of a garment that is presented to a priest on a ceremonial occasion.
The autochthon of the Germans is Mannus; his son is Tuiskon. In the Oupnekhat (vol. ii, p. 347, and vol. i, p. 96) the first human being is called Man.
It is well known that Satyavrati is identical with Menu or Manu, and, on the other hand, with Noah. Now the father of Samson is Manoah (Judges 13); Manu, Manoah, Noah; the Septuagint has [x] and [x]. Might not Noe be exactly the same as Manoe with the omission of the first syllable?
Among the Etruscans Jupiter was called Tina (Moreau de Jones at the Academy of Moral and Political Science, December 1850). Perhaps this might be connected with the Chinese Tien. The Etruscans had the Anna Perenna of the Hindus.
All these analogies are thoroughly investigated by Wilford and Burr in the Asiatic Researches.
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[b]Notes:[/b]
1 ['The part of the uterus and the part of the foetus in the placenta'.]
2 ['From natural talent'.]
3 ['For the greater glory of God'.]
4 ['A secret to be concealed.' (The real meaning of' Upanishad' is 'confidential secret meeting'.)] 5 ['Creating nature'. (Term used by Spinoza and other philosophers.)] 6 ['Cross provided with a ring'; 'ansate cross'.] * Schelling's explanation of Janus (in the Berlin Academy) is that he signifies 'chaos as primary unity'. A much more thorough explanation is given by Walz, De religione Romanorum antiquissima, (in the prospectus of Tubingen University) 1845.
7 [Jupiter.]
8 ['Corban, that is to say, a gift' (An Aramaic word inserted by the Persian translators and not occurring in the Sanskrit text).]
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