Mother India

Mother Indiatc "Mother India"
(A Reply from a French Savant of the last century, to the
American ‘shilling-shocker’ of to-day)

There is a suggestive law of nature which the ancient Hindus have embedded in their philosophy, and which is of universal application, and that is, that the intrinsic merit or quality of a person or thing, seen or judged, is not objective but subjective.  In other words, the value of an object is not in the object itself but is in the mind of the observer.  A noble mind sees greatness everywhere;  a vulgar mind, vulgarity, even as the mind of the poet sees everything poetically.  To appreciate a good or a beautiful thing, there must be corresponding quality of goodness or beauty in the mind of the observer, or as Emerson put it:  “You may search for beauty the world over, but you will never find it unless you have it within you.”  An artist responds to beauty without, because he has the seed of beauty within.  “Action and Reaction are equal and opposite,” is a fundamental law of nature, applicable not only to the physical things but to moral and spiritual realms as well.  There is a well known couplet in English verse which expresses this idea:

“Two men looked through the bars,
One saw the earth, the other stars.”

This truth is exemplified in that much advertised book of Miss Mayo, who, in attempting to condemn a very ancient and complex civilisation like that of the Hindus, has not only condemned herself but most lamentably betrayed her own mentality.  Her book has been sufficiently criticised from deserving quarters; but I wish to record here the verdict of an erudite scholar, an eminent savant and a most learned Orientalist of France, who visited India in early years of the nineteenth century, lived among the people as one with them for over twenty years, learnt their languages, and recorded his experiences in twenty-one volumes, as against the slanderous statements of an American woman, who sat herself down to write a book on India, after a few months’ ‘cold season tour’ in this country, exposing the evils of a race and culture as old as hills and as varied and complex as humanity itself. The patient, diligent and impartial scholar has given his judgement, as also the hasty, irresponsible, ‘Drain-Inspector’ her report.  The French scholar has found wisdom everywhere; the American spinster, sex-complexes. They, acting in accordance with a natural law, responded to the best within them. There is an old saying in India, which says: “One must study to know, know to understand, understand to judge.” I give below a summary of the French savant’s twenty years’ experience in this country; and though he is often severe as to Indian degradation and still severe to those who were cause of it-the Brahmins - his rebuke is proportionate to the intensity of his appreciation of her past grandeur.  “To study India” he says, “is to study humanity” How true! And yet would Miss Mayo dispose of India in a single book, as a nation of imbeciles, sex-maniacs, and a source of social danger to the world. Listen to what the learned scholar, Louis Jacolliot says:

“India, 6000 years ago, brilliant, civilised, overflowing with population, impressed upon Egypt, Persia, Arabia, Judea, Greece and Rome, a stamp as ineffaceable, as profound as those of Greece and Rome on modern Europe.”

He catalogues briefly, as under, India’s achievements in arts, sciences and philosophy.  It is a strange coincidence that he repeatedly calls this ancient land, with utmost devotion and reverence, as ‘Mother India,’ a title purloined and abused by Miss Mayo.

Astronomy: The ancient Hindus fixed the calendar, invented the zodiac, calculated the precision if the equinoxes, discovered the general laws of the movements, observed and predicted the eclipses.

Mathematics: They invented the decimal system, algebra, the differential, integral and infinitesimal calculi. They also discovered geometry and trigonometry, and in these two sciences they proved theorems which were only discovered in Europe as late as the 17^th century.  It was the Hindus in fact who first deduced the superficial measure of a triangle from the calculation of its three sides, and calculated the relation of the circumference to the diameter.  Furthermore, we must restore to them the square of the hypotenuse and the table so improperly called pythogorean, which we find engraved on the ‘Gouprams’ of their temples.

Physics:  They established the principle which is still our own to-day that the universe is a harmonious whole, subject to laws of observation and experiment.  They discovered hydrostatics; and the famous proposition that every body plunged in water loses of its own weight a weight equal to the volume which it displaces, is only the loan made by Hindus to the famous Greek architect Archimedes.  The Hindu physicists calculated the velocity of light, and fixed in a positive manner the laws which it follows in its reflection. And finally, it is beyond doubt, from the calculation of surya siddhanta, that they knew and calculated the force of steam.

Chemistry: They knew the composition of water, and formulated for gases the famous law, which we know only from yesterday, that the volumes of gas are in inverse ratio to the pressures that they support.  They knew how to prepare sulphuric, nitric and muriatic acids; oxides of copper, iron, lead, tin and zinc; the sulphates of iron, copper, mercury, antimony and arsenic ; the sulphates of zinc and iron; the carbonates of lead and soda; nitrate of sliver; and powder.

Medicine: Their knowledge was truly astonishing.  In Charaka and Susrutta, (the two Princes of Hindu Medicine,) is laid down the system which Hippocrates appropriated later.  Susrutta notably enunciates the principles of preventive or hygiene, which he places much above curative medicine.  The Arab physicians constantly referred to the Hindu physicians for many medicinal discoveries.

Grammar: They formed the most marvellous language in the world-the Sanskrit-which gave birth to the greater part of the idioms of the Orient and of Indo-European countries.

Poetry: They have treated all the styles, and shown themselves supreme masters in it. Their descriptive poetry has never been equalled.  Their fables have been copied by all modern and ancient peoples. 

Music: They invented the gamut with its difference of tones and half-tones, and perfected melodic forms.           

Architecture: They seem to have exhausted all that the genius of man is capable of conceiving.  Domes, inexpressibly bold; tapering cupolas, with marbly lace; Gothic towers; Greek hemicycles, polychrome style-all kinds and epochs are there.

Philosophy: They were the greatest philosophical speculators of the ancient world.  The founders of metaphysical philosophy and of positive philosophy, as represented by the Vedantic and Sankhya schools respectively.

Religion: The world’s three greatest religions took their birth there; and most of the world’s saints and singers are to be met in India. 

Morality: They have a code of ethics unsurpassed in the world; and the average Hindu is more moral than the average European.

Sociology: The Hindus perfected a social system, based on an ideal of communalism. It kept the race pure and unsullied throughout the ages.  It has become rigid and narrow, owing to other circumstances.  It has the seed of the future social polity of the world.

That is the ‘Mother India’ of the ages; the cradle-land of religions and the nursery of races.  Her greatness cannot easily be fathomed.  He who wants pearls must dive deep down below; the scum ever floats on the surface.  India’s present-day social evils are the results of her extreme poverty due to exploitation and alien domination.  Poverty is the disease of the soul, as dirt is the disease of the body.  Quacks, like Miss Mayo, see merely the symptoms; the cause lies hidden in India’s political slavery.  Restore her to her rightful freedom and she will rise her full stature and reveal her hidden glory.  ‘Mother India’ of Miss Mayo is not a challenge to India’s fitness for self-rule, but a condemnation of the present rule and a plea for India’s right to be mistress in her own household and to set her home in order by clearing away the cobwebs of disease, despair, poverty, cowardice, slave –mentality, sex-perversions and other social evils with one sweep of the magical brush of Freedom.

Unfortunately even after independence we find corruption! - Editor