Truth from the pages of History
Sept 2002
I never knew humanity could have seen such wonderful days in the past as is described below by people coming from different nations, seeing Hindu society through their eyes, over a period of more than 2,000 years. I never knew this because not much of it has remained now to be seen often, and the history that I was taught in school did not care to mention any of these. Yet they happen to be well-documented facts and not creation of fiction. A careful reading can make us wonder many things. Let me first submit ample testimony in other peoples' words before venturing to say what I want to say in my own words because then only my words will have some credibility.
We will see that foreign travelers, businessmen, writers, educationists, diplomats and conquerors, who visited BhaaratVarsh (now known as India) during a period of 2,300 years as to what they have to say about the Hindu Society in their own words. We will see that these people came during different centuries, from different continents, different nations, different cultures, different societies, different backgrounds, different mental makeup, different expectations but all of them invariably documented the same qualities about Hindu society. We will see that these people visited different parts of BhaaratVarsh and lived in different sections of Hindu Society and they all came to the same conclusions. This cannot happen by coincidence. This can happen only if it had been a constant and consistent truth about Hindu Society through ages.
We will also see what these people have to say about Braahmans (Brahmins)/Pundits whose image has been much maligned on purpose by later day writers using propaganda driven mechanism. By and large Braahmans have been very poor and they kept themselves to priesthood and teaching. Christian and Muslim clergy have controlled national politics and governance of the State administration. Popes have done that for centuries and Khomeini, Taliban do it even today. Hindu priests did not assume the role of their Christian and Islamic counterparts yet they have been made to look like them, on purpose, to divide the Hindu Society into factions. Politicized scholarship of this kind has weakened the Hindu society in modern days by dividing and politicizing it. It may not be out of place to add that I am not a Braahman to have a reason to defend them except for my desire to dig the truth out and my distaste for fabrications.
Testimonies of Foreign Visitors
“Ktesias, the famous Greek physician of Artaxerxes Mnemon (present at the battle of Cunaxa, 404 BC), the first Greek writer who tells us anything about the character of the Indians, such as he heard it described at the Persian court, has a special chapter ‘On the justice of the Indians’.
Megasthenes, the ambassador of Selucus Nicator at the court of Sandrocottus in Palibothra (Paataliputr, the modern Patna), states that thefts were extremely rare, and they honored truth as virtue.
Arrian (in the 2nd century, the pupil of Epictetus), when speaking of the public overseers or superintendents in India, says ‘They oversee what goes on in the country or towns, and report everything to the king, where the people have a king, and to the magistrates, where the people are self-governed, and it is against use and wont for these to give in a false report; but indeed no Indian is accused of lying’.
The Chinese, who come next in order of time, bear the same, believe, unanimous testimony in favor of the honesty and veracity of the Hindus. Let me quote Hiouen-thsang, the most famous of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, who visited India in 7th century. ‘Though the Indians,’ he writes, ‘are of a light temperament, they are distinguished by the straightforwardness and honesty of their character. With regard to riches, they never take anything unjustly; with regard to justice, they make even excessive concessions…Straightforwardness is the distinguishing feature of their administration.’
If we turn to the accounts given by the Mohammedan conquerors of India, we find Idrisi, in his Geography (written in the 11th century), summing up their opinion of the Indians in the following words: ‘The Indians are naturally inclined to justice, and never depart from it in their actions. Their good faith, honesty, and fidelity to their engagements are well known, and they are so famous for these qualities that people flock to their country from every side’.
In the 13th century we have the testimony of Marco Polo, who thus speaks of Abraiaman, a name by which he seems to mean the Braahmans who, though not traders by profession, might have been employed for great commercial transactions by the king. This was particularly the case during times which the Braahmans would call times of distress, when many things were allowed which at other times were forbidden by the laws. ‘You must know,’ Marco Polo says, ‘that these Abraiaman are the best merchants in the world, and the most truthful, for they would not tell a lie for anything on earth.’
In the 14th century we have Friar Jordanus, who goes out of his way to tell us that the people of Lesser India (South and Western India) are true in speech and eminent in justice.
In the 15th century Kamal-eddin Abd-errazak Samarkandi (1413-82), who went as ambassador of the Khakan to the prince of Kalikut and to the king of Vidyanagara (about 1440-45), bears testimony to the perfect security, which merchants enjoy in that country.
In the 16th century, Abul Fazl, the minister of the Emperor Akbar, says in his Ayin Akbari: ‘The Hindus are religious, affable, cheerful, lovers of justice, given to retirement, able in business, admirers of truth, grateful and of unbounded fidelity; and their soldiers know not what it is to fly from the field of battle.’
And given in quite modern times the Mohammedans seem willing to admit that the Hindus, at all events in their dealings with Hindus, are more straightforward than Mohammedans in their dealings with Mohammedans.”
Speaking as above, at Cambridge University in 1882, Max Muller continued his lecture: “So I could go on quoting from book after book, and again and again we should see how it was the love of truth that struck all the people who came in contact with India, as the prominent feature in the national character of its inhabitants. No one ever accused them of falsehood. There must surely be some ground for this, for it is not a remark that is frequently made by travelers in foreign countries, even in our time, that their inhabitants invariably speak the truth. Read the accounts of English travelers in France, and you will find very little said about French honesty and veracity, while French accounts of England are seldom without a fling at Perfide Albion!
Warren Hastings thus speaks of the Hindus in general: ‘They are gentle and benevolent, more susceptible of gratitude for kindness shown to them, and less prompted to vengeance for wrongs inflicted than any people on the face of the earth; faithful, affectionate, submissive to legal authority.’
Bishop Heber said: ‘The Hindus are brave, courteous, intelligent, most eager for knowledge and improvement; sober, industrious, dutiful to parents, affectionate to their children, uniformly gentle and patient, and more easily affected by kindness and attention to their wants and feelings than any people I ever met with.’
Elphinstone states: ‘No set of people among the Hindus are so depraved as the dregs of our own great towns. The villagers are everywhere amiable, affectionate to their families, kind to their neighbors, and towards all but the government honest and sincere. Including the Thugs and Dacoits, the mass of crime is less in India than in England. The Thugs are almost a separate nation, and the Dacoits are desperate ruffians in gangs. The Hindus are mild and gentle people, more merciful to prisoners than any other Asiatics. Their freedom from gross debauchery is the point in which they appear to most advantage; and their superiority in purity of manners is not flattering to our self-esteem.’
Sir John Malcolm writes: ‘I have hardly ever known where a person did understand the language, or where calm communication was made to a native of India, through a well informed and trustworthy medium, that the results did not prove, that what had at first been stated as falsehood, had either proceeded from fear, or from misapprehension. I by no means wish to state that our Indian subjects are more free from this vice than other nations that occupy a nearly equal position in the society, but I am positive that they are not more addicted to untruth.’
Sir Thomas Munro bears even stronger testimony. He writes: ‘If a good system of agriculture, unrivalled manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to either convenience or luxury, schools established in every village for teaching, reading, writing, and arithmetic, the general practice of hospitality and charity amongst each other, and above all, a treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect, and delicacy, are among the signs which denote a civilized people – then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe, and if civilization is to become an article of trade between England and India, I am convinced that England will gain by the import cargo.’
Max Muller continued: I knew the late Professor Wilson, our Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, for many years, and often listened with deep interest to his reminiscences. Let me read you what he, Professor Wilson, says of his native friends, associates, and servants: ‘I lived, both from necessity and choice, very much amongst the Hindus, and had opportunities of becoming acquainted with them in a greater variety of situations than those in which they usually come under the observation of Europeans. In the Calcutta mint, for instance, I was in daily personal communication with a numerous body of artificers, mechanics, and laborers, and always found amongst them cheerful and unwearied industry, good-humored compliance with the will of their superiors, and a readiness to make whatever exertions were demanded from them: there was among them no drunkenness, no disorderly conduct, no insubordination. It would not be true to say that there was no dishonesty, but it was comparatively rare, invariably petty, and much less formidable than, I believe, it is necessary to guard against in other mints in other countries. There was considerable skill and ready docility. So far from there being any servility, there was extreme frankness, and I should say that where there is confidence without fear, frankness is one of the most universal features in the Indian character. Let the people feel sure of the temper and goodwill of their superiors, and there is an end of reserve and timidity, without the slightest departure from respect…’
Then, speaking of much-abused Indian Pundits, he says: ‘The studies which engaged my leisure brought me into connection with the men of learning, and in them I found the similar merits of industry, intelligence, cheerfulness, frankness, with others peculiar to their avocation. A very common characteristic of these men, and of the Hindus especially, was simplicity truly childish, and a total un-acquaintance with the business and manners of life. Where that feature was lost, it was chiefly by those who had been long familiar with Europeans. Amongst the Pundits, or the learned Hindus, there prevailed great ignorance and great dread of the European character. There is indeed, very little intercourse between any class of Europeans and Hindu scholars, and it is not wonderful, therefore, that mutual misapprehension should prevail.’
Speaking, lastly, of the higher classes in Calcutta and elsewhere, Professor Wilson says that he witnessed amongst them ‘polished manners, clearness and comprehensiveness of understanding, liberality of feeling and independence of principle that would have stamped them gentlemen in any country in the world.’ ‘With some of this class,’ he adds, ‘I formed friendship which I trust to enjoy through life.’
I have often heard Professor Wilson speak in the same, and in even stronger terms of his old friends in India, and his correspondence with Ram Komal Sen, the grandfather of Keshab Chandr Sen, a most orthodox, not to say bigoted, Hindu, which has lately been published, shows on what intimate terms Englishmen and Hindus may be, if only the advances are made on the English side.
There is another Professor of Sanskrit, of whom your University may well be proud, and who could speak on this subject with far greater authority than I can. He too will tell you, and I have no doubt has often told you, that if only you look out for friends among the Hindus, you will find them, and you may trust them.”
“Colonel Sleeman saw India, where alone the true India can be seen, namely, in the village-communities… Now what Colonel Sleeman continually, insists on is that no one knows the Indians who does not know them in their village-communities – what we shall now call their communes. It is that village-life which in India has given its peculiar impress to the Indian character, more so than in any other country we know. When in Indian history we hear so much of kings and emperors, of rajahs and maharajahs, we are apt to think of India as an Eastern monarchy, ruled by a central power, and without any trace of that self-government which forms the pride of England. But those who have most carefully studied the political life of India tell you the very opposite…In their panchaayats [village self-governance], Sleeman tells us, men adhere habitually and religiously to the truth, and ‘I have had before me hundreds of cases,’ he says, ‘in which a man’s property, liberty, and life depended upon his telling a lie, and he has refused to tell it.’ Could many an English judge say the same?
When you read the atrocities committed by the Mohammedan conquerors of India from that time to the time when England stepped in and, whatever may be said by her envious critics, made, at all events, the broad principles of our common humanity respected once more in India, to my mind, is how any nation could have survived such an inferno, without being turned into devils themselves.”
Max Muller continues, “Now, it is quite true that during the two thousand years which precede the time of Mahmud of Gazni, India has had but few foreign visitors, and few foreign critics; still it is extremely strange that whenever, either in Greek, or in Chinese, or in Persian, or in Arab writings, we meet any attempts at describing the distinguishing features in the national character of the Indians, regard for truth and justice should always be mentioned first.
Let me add that I have been repeatedly told by English merchants that commercial honor stands higher in India than in any other country, and that a dishonored bill is hardly known there.
I have left to the last of the witness who might otherwise have been suspected – I mean the Hindus themselves. The whole of their literature from one end to the other is pervaded by expressions of love and reverence for truth.
…I doubt whether in any other of the ancient literatures of the world you will find traces of that extreme sensitiveness of conscience which despairs of our ever speaking the truth, and which declares silence as gold, and speech silver, though in a much higher sense than our proverb.
What I should wish to impress on those who will soon find themselves the rulers of the millions of human beings in India, is the duty to shake off the national prejudices, which are apt to degenerate into a kind of madness. I have known people with a brown skin whom I could look up to as my betters…
…If you approach the Hindus with such feelings, you will teach them neither rectitude, nor science, nor literature. Nay, they might appeal to their own literature, even to their law-books, to teach us at least one lesson of truthfulness, truthfulness to ourselves, or, in other words, - humility.”
Comments
The battle of MahaaBhaarat was fought about 3138 BC to reestablish dharm. Foreign visitors’ accounts of what they witnessed, which we read above, is testimony that dharm, indeed, was re-established.
These visitors came from different lands, they had different backgrounds, they came from different centuries, and they had different value system. They visited different segments of Hindu society, placed in different parts of India. They witnessed Hindu society over a vast period of more than two thousand years. In their own ways they each evaluated Hindu society and invariably came to similar conclusions.
What does this say? There must have been something inherent in Hinduism that would have inculcated such fine qualities amongst Hindu men, women and children. These values must have been so deep that they lasted for so long (almost 5000 years) and uniformly, since the time they were re-instituted following the battle of MahaaBhaarat.
These accounts are dated 404 BC onwards. Similar conditions must have prevailed after MahaaBhaarat until this time because suddenly such strong social fabric could not have developed overnight. The structure must have evolved from the time battle of MahaaBhaarat ended and dharm was re-established.
In contrast, let us look at the social structures evolved by Christian societies, Islamic societies, Marxist societies, and modern secular societies. We see them disintegrating already. The base unit ‘family’ is fast eroding the social fabric of modern society. Look at the number of years they have withstood the test of time.
The test of time is the best test, it tells us what works in practice. It has worked for Hindu society; it has not worked for Christian societies, Islamic societies, Marxist societies, and modern secular societies long enough to stand the test of time. It may be worth recapitulating at this point, how badly Christian missionaries, English educated Indian Englishmen, and Marxist intellectuals tried to tarnish the image of Hinduism and Hindu society.
Day ends and night takes over. That is natural. Max Muller spoke of the inferno and now we will proceed to look at the testimony of Islamic historians as to what that inferno was like. As we walk through that account we might want to visualize placing the Hindu society through that inferno for a period of thousand years and then try to imagine in our mind what disastrous blow it could have had on the social fabric of Hindu society. After that we might want to revisit the testimonies of European visitors as late as eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as given above, and wonder how could so much virtue have survived?
Finally, we may want to ask ourselves few questions: whatever held Hindu society together through such ordeal, could it have been of small value? For once, we may want to be honest to ourselves and start thinking if we need to look back and study the value system that ancient sages of India had evolved with due respect that it deserves. For this, we may have to first set aside our ego that we have advanced over our predecessors.
Let us understand one thing very clearly. Hindu society without Hinduism would be non-existent. The foundation of Hindu society lies in spiritualism of Hinduism. That is where its soul is and that is where its life support system has been. Therefore, Hindu society cannot be viewed without Hinduism.
No nation can prosper dwelling upon borrowed values particularly those, which have not stood the test of time. It is important that we Hindus realize that we did have a glorious past and we recognize our roots. It is important that we Hindus examine in-depth what lay behind our glorious past that gave us such enviable character as a society and as a nation? Then only, and then alone, we will be able to recreate our past once again and see its reflection in our present; or else, we will keep drifting like one who knows not his roots.
If it existed once before as is evident from the testimonies of so many people coming from such diverse background and if it existed for such a long time period as evident from these accounts, and if it had stood the ‘test of time’ then it must be capable of recreating itself in today’s context provided we have the desire and the determination.