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WISDOM OF INDIA
ETERNAL
INDIA
encyclopedia
The effect of these principles, or rather want of principle, is very
conspicuous in the lower orders of people, who are totally devoid of
honesty. They are, indeed, cautious how they transgress against the
laws, from fear of punishment; but whenever an opportunity offers of
purloining any thing without the risk of detection, they never pass it by.
They are also ever on the watch to appropriate to themselves the
property of the rich, who, on this account, are obliged constantly to keep
their doors shut, and never to permit an unknown person to enter them.
At present, owing to the vigilance of the magistrates, the severity of the
laws, and the honour of the superior classes of people, no very bad con-
sequences are to be apprehended; but if ever such nefarious practices
should become prevalent and should creep in among the higher classes,
inevitable ruin must ensue.
The second defect most conspicuous in the English character is
pride, or insolence. Puffed up with their power and good fortune for the
last fifty years, they are not apprehensive of adversity, and take no pains
to avert it. Thus, when the people of London, some time ago, assembled
in mobs on account of the great increase of taxes and high price of pro-
visions, and were nearly in a state of insurrection— although the
magistrates, by their vigilance in watching them, and by causing parties
of soldiers to patrol the streets day and night, to disperse all persons
whom they saw assembling together, succeeded in quieting the distur-
bance—yet no pains were afterwards taken to eradicate the evil. Some
of the men in power said it had been merely a plan of the artificers to
obtain higher wages (an attempt frequently made by the English trades-
men); therefore no further notice was taken of the affair. All this, I say,
betrays a blind confidence, which, instead of meeting the danger and
endeavouring to prevent it, waits till the misfortune arrives, and then
attempts to remedy it. Such was the case with the late King of France,
who took no step to oppose the Revolution till it was too late. This self-
confidence is to be found, more or less, in every Englishman; it however
differs much from the pride of the Indians and Persians.
Their third defect is a passion for acquiring money and their attach-
ment to worldly affairs. Although these bad qualities are not so
reprehensible in them as in countries more subject to the vicissitudes of
fortune, (because, in England, property is so well protected by the laws
that every person reaps the fruits of his industry, and, in his old age, en-
joys the earnings or economy of his youth,) yet sordid and illiberal
habits are generally found to accompany avarice and parsimony, and
consequently, render the possessor of them contemptible; on the
contrary, generosity, if it does not launch into prodigality, but is guided
by the hand of prudence, will render a man respected and esteemed.
From
The Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan
(Muslim traveller to the West)
THE HARP OF INDIA
Why hang'st thou lonely on yon withered bough?
Unstrung, forever, must thou there remain?
Thy music once was sweet—who hears it now?
Why doth the breeze sigh over thee in vain?-
Silence hath bound thee with her fatal chain;
Neglected, mute and desolate art thou
Like ruined monument on-desert plain
O! many a hand more worthy far than mine
Once thy harmonious chords to sweetness gave,
And many a wreath for them did Fame entwine
Of flowers still blooming on the minstrel's grave;
Those hands are cold— but if thy notes divine
May be by mortal wakened once again,
Harp of my country, let me strike the strain!
TO INDIA-MY NATIVE LAND
My country! in thy day of glory past
A beauteous halo circled round thy brow,
And worshipped as a deity thou wast.
Where is that glory, where that reverence now?
Thy eagle pinion is chained down at last,
And grovelling in the lowly dust art thou:
Thy minstrel hath no wreath to weave for thee
Save the s ad story of thy misery!
Well let me dive into the depths of time,
And bring from out the ages that have rolled
A few small fragments of those wrecks sublime,
Which human eye may never more behold;
And let the guerdon of my labour be
My fallen country! one kind wish from thee!
From Bradley-Birt,
Poems of Henry Derozio
The greater part of Brahmans, as well as of other sects of Hindoos,
are quite incapable of justifying that idolatry which they continue to
practise. When questioned on the subject, in place of adducing
reasonable arguments in support of their conduct, they conceive it fully
sufficient to quote their ancestors as positive authorities! And some of
them have become very ill disposed towards me, because I have for-
saken idolatry for the worship of the true and eternal God! In order,
therefore, to vindicate my own faith, and that of our early forefathers,
I have been endeavouring, for some time past, to convince my country-
men of the true meaning of our sacred books, and to prove that my
aberration deserves not the opprobrium which some unreflecting
persons have been so ready to throw upon me.
The whole body of the Hindoo theology, law, and literature is
contained in the
Veds [Vedas],
which are affirmed to be coeval with the
creation! These works are extremely voluminous; and being written in
the most elevated and metaphorical style, are, as may be well supposed,
in many passages seemingly confused and contradictory. Upwards of
two thousand years ago, the great Byas [Vyasa Badarayana], reflecting
on the perpetual difficulty arising from these sources, composed with
great discrimination a complete and compendious abstract of the
whole, and also reconciled those texts, which appeared to stand at
variance. This work he termed
The Vedant
[Vedanta], which, com-
pounded of two Sungscrit [Sanskrit] words, signifies
The resolutions of
all the Veds.
It has continued to be most highly revered by all the Hin-
doos, and, in place of the more diffuse arguments of the Veds, is always
referred to as equal authority. But, from its being concealed within the