OR EXAMPLES OF THE RELIGIOUS, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND ETHICAL WITH A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CHIEF DEPARTMENTS OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE, AND SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PAST AND PRESENT CONDITION OF INDIA, MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL. · BY MONIER WILLIAMS, M.A., D.C.L., Hon. Doctor in Law of the University of Calcutta ; Hon. Member of the Bombay Asiatic Society: Member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the Oriental Society of Germany: THIRD EDITION. LONDON: WM. H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W. Publishers to the India Office. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. THE increasing interest felt in India and Indian litera ture has led to such a demand for the present work, that it was found necessary to begin printing a second edition almost immediately after the issue of the first. I have, therefore, been unable to avail myself of the suggestions contained in the Reviews which have hitherto appeared. Nevertheless, a few unimportant alterations have been made in the present edition; and through the kindness of Professor W. D. Whitney, who lost no time in sending me some valuable notes, I have been able to improve the chapter on Astronomy at p. 180. Being on the eve of quitting England for a visit to the principal seats of learning in India, I have for obvious reasons deferred addressing myself to the fuller treatment of those portions of Sanskrit literature of which I have merely given a summary in Lecture XV. India, with all its immutability, is now making such rapid strides in education, that a Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, if he is to keep himself up to the level of advancing knowledge and attainments, ought to communicate personally with some of those remarkable native Pandits whose intellects have been developed at our great Indian Colleges and Universities, and who owe their eminence in various branches of learning to the advantages they have enjoyed under our Government. In undertaking so long a journey my only motives are a sense of what is due from me to the Boden Chair, a desire to extend, my sphere of work, a craving for trustworthy information on many obscure portions of Indian religious literature not yet examined by European scholars, and a hope that on my return, should health and strength be spared to me, I may have increased my powers of usefulness within my own province, and be enabled to contribute more than I have yet effected towards making England and India better known to each other, or at least towards making Oxford an attractive centre of Indian studies, and its lecturerooms, museums, and libraries sources of accurate knowledge on Indian subjects. Oxford, October 1875. THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. HE present volume1 attempts to supply a want, the existence of which has been impressed upon my mind by an inquiry often addressed to me as Boden Professor-Is it possible to obtain from any one book a good general idea of the character and contents of Sanskrit literature? Its pages are also intended to subserve a further object. They aim at imparting to educated Englishmen, by means of translations and explanations of portions of the sacred and philosophical literature of India, an insight into the mind, habits of thought, and customs of the Hindus, as well as a correct knowledge of a system. of belief and practice which has constantly prevailed for at least three thousand years, and still continues 1 The volume is founded on my official lectures. to exist as one of the principal religions of the NonChristian world1. It cannot indeed be right, nor is it even possible for educated Englishmen to remain any longer ignorant of the literary productions, laws, institutions, religious creed, and moral precepts of their Hindu fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects. The East and West are every day being drawn nearer to each other, and British India, in particular, is now brought so close to us by steam, electricity, and the Suez Canal, that the condition of the Hindu community-mental, moral, and physical-forces itself peremptorily on our attention. Nor is it any longer justifiable to plead the difficulty of obtaining accurate official information as an excuse for ignorance. Our Government has for a long period addressed itself most energetically to the investigation of every detail capable of throwing light on the past and present history of the Queen's Indian dominions. A Literary survey of the whole of India has been recently organized for the purpose of ascertaining what Sanskrit MSS., worthy of preservation, exist in public and 1 See the caution, last line of p. xxxi, and p. 2. Although European nations have changed their religions during the past eighteen centuries, the Hindus have not done so, except very partially. Islam converted a certain number by force of arms in the eighth and following centuries, and Christian truth is at last creeping onwards and winning its way by its own inherent energy in the nineteenth; but the religious creeds, rites, customs, and habits of thought of the Hindus generally have altered little since the days of Manu, five hundred years B. C. Of course they have experienced accretions, but many of the same caste observances and rules of conduct (ācāra, vyavahāra, see p. 217) are still in force; some of the same laws of inheritance (dāya, p. 270) hold good; even a beggar will sometimes ask for alms in words prescribed by the ancient lawgiver (bhikshām dehi, Manu II. 49, Kullūka); and to this day, if a pupil absents himself from an Indian college, he sometimes excuses himself by saying that he has a prayas-citta to perform (see p. 278, and Trübner's Report of Professor Stenzler's Speech at the London Oriental Congress). |