Discourses delivered before the Asiatic society: and miscellaneous papers on ... the nations of India. With an essay by lord Teignmouth. Selected and ed. by J. Elmes

Front Cover

From inside the book

Contents

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 30 - ... been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning...
Page 146 - I cannot refrain from adding, that the collection of tracts, which we call from their excellence the Scriptures, cantata, independently of a divine origin, more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected within the same compass from all other books that were ever composed in any age or in any idiom.
Page 29 - The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all...
Page 3 - It gave me inexpressible pleasure to find myself in the midst of so noble an amphitheatre, almost encircled by the vast regions of Asia, which has ever been esteemed the nurse of sciences, the inventress of delightful and useful arts...
Page 36 - In the first of the sacred law tracts (as is observed by a person to whom Oriental literature, in all its branches, has been greatly indebted), which the Hindoos suppose to have been revealed by Menu, some millions of years ago, there is a curious passage on the legal interest of money, and the limited rate of it in different cases, with an exception in regard to adventures at sea ; an exception which the sense of mankind approves, and which commerce absolutely requires, though it was 'not before...
Page 29 - Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists...
Page 13 - Retna's, or precious things, which their gods are believed to have produced by churning the ocean with the mountain Mandara, was a learned physician.
Page 88 - A fortunate discovery, for which I was first indebted to Mir Muhammed Husain, one of the most intelligent Muselma&s in India, has at once dissipated the cloud, and cast a gleam of light on the primeval history of Iran and of the human race, of which I had long despaired ; and which could hardly have dawned from any other quarter.
Page 100 - * Supreme God made the world by his power, and " continually governed it by his providence ; a pious '* fear, love, and adoration of him ; a due reverence " for parents and aged persons ; a fraternal affection " for the whole human species, and a compassionate " tenderness even for the brute creation.
Page 38 - Of these cursory observations on the Hindus, which it would require volumes to expand and illustrate, this is the result: that they had an immemorial affinity with the old Persians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians, the Phenicians, Greeks, and Tuscans, the Scythians or Goths, and Celts, the Chinese, Japanese, and Peruvians; whence, as no reason appears for believing, that they were a colony from any one of those nations, or any of those nations from them, we may fairly conclude that they all proceeded from...

Bibliographic information