{"id":3283,"date":"2013-07-13T01:47:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3283"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:47:10","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:47:10","slug":"05-dayananda-vol-bankim-tilak-dayananda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/bankim-tilak-dayananda\/05-dayananda-vol-bankim-tilak-dayananda","title":{"rendered":"-05_Dayananda.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nDAYANANDA<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n I<\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE MAN AND HIS WORK<\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nAmong the great company of remarkable figures that will
\nappear to the eye of posterity at the head of the Indian
\nRenascence, one stands out by himself with peculiar and
\nsolitary distinctness, one unique in his type as he is unique
\nin his work. It is as if one were to walk for a long time
\namid a range of hills rising to a greater or lesser altitude,
\nbut all with sweeping contours, green-clad, flattering the
\neye even in their most bold and striking elevation. But
\namidst them all, one hill stands apart, piled up in sheer
\nstrength, a mass of bare and puissant granite, with verdure
\non its summit, a solitary pine jutting out into the blue, a
\ngreat cascade of pure, vigorous and fertilising water
\ngushing out from its strength as a very fountain of life and
\nhealth to the valley. Such is the impression created on my
\nmind by Dayananda. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt was Kathiawar that gave birth to this puissant renovator and new-creator. And something of the very soul
\nand temperament of that peculiar land entered into his
\nspirit, something of Girnar and the rocks and hills,
\nsomething of the voice and puissance of the sea that flings
\nitself upon those coasts, something of that humanity which
\nseems to be made of the virgin and unspoilt stuff of
\nNature, fair and robust in body, instinct with a fresh and
\nprimal vigour, crude in the crude, but in a developed nature capable of becoming a great force of genial creation.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 43<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nWhen I seek to give an account to myself of my
\nsentiment and put into precise form the impression I have
\nreceived, I find myself starting from two great salient
\ncharacteristics of this man’s life and work which mark him
\noff from his contemporaries and compeers. Other great
\nIndians have helped to make India of today by a self-
\npouring into the psychological material of the race, a
\nspiritual infusion of themselves into the fluent and indeterminate mass which will one day settle into consistency and appear as a great formal birth of Nature. They
\nhave entered in as a sort of leaven, a power of unformed
\nstir and ferment out of which forms must result. One
\nremembers them as great souls and great influences who
\nlive on in the soul of India. They are in us and we would
\nnot be what we are without them. But of no precise form
\ncan we say that this was what the man meant, still less that
\nthis form was the very body of that spirit. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe example of Mahadev Govind Ranade presents
\nitself to my mind as the very type of this peculiar action so
\nnecessary to a period of large and complex formation. If a
\nforeigner were to ask us what this Mahratta economist,
\nreformer, patriot precisely did that we give him so high a
\nplace in our memory, we should find it a little difficult to
\nanswer. We should have to point to those activities of a
\nmass of men in which his soul and thought were present,
\nas a formless former of things, to the great figures of
\npresent-day Indian life who received the breath of his
\nspirit. And in the end we should have to reply by a counter
\nquestion, "What would Maharashtra of today have been
\nwithout Mahadev Govind Ranade and what would India
\nof today be without Maharashtra?" But even with those <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 44<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwho were less amorphous and diffusive in their pressure
\non men and things, even with workers of a more distinct
\nenergy and action, I arrive fundamentally at the same
\nimpression. Vivekananda was a soul of puissance if ever
\nthere was one, a very lion among men, but the definite
\nwork he has left behind is quite incommensurate with our
\nimpression of his creative might and energy. We perceive
\nhis influence still working gigantically, we know not well
\nhow, we know not well where, in something that is not yet
\nformed, something leonine, grand, intuitive, upheaving
\nthat has entered the soul of India and we say, "Behold,
\nVivekananda still lives in the soul of his Mother and in the
\nsouls of her children." So it is with all. Not only are the
\nmen greater than their definite works, but their influence
\nis so wide and formless that it has little relation to any
\nformal work that they have left behind them. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nVery different was the manner of working of Dayananda. Here was one who did not infuse himself informally into the indeterminate soul of things, but stamped
\nhis figure indelibly as in bronze on men and things. Here
\nwas one whose formal works are the very children of his
\nspiritual body, children fair and robust and full of vitality,
\nthe image of their creator. Here was one who knew
\ndefinitely and clearly the work he was sent to do, chose his
\nmaterials, determined his conditions with a sovereign
\nclairvoyance of the spirit and executed his conception with
\nthe puissant mastery of the born worker. As I regard the
\nfigure of this formidable artisan in God’s workshop,
\nimages crowd on me which are all of battle and work and
\nconquest and triumphant labour. Here, I say to myself,
\nwas a very soldier of Light, a warrior in God’s world, a
\nsculptor of men and institutions, a bold and rugged victor <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 45<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nof the difficulties which matter presents to spirit. And the
\nwhole sums itself up to me in a powerful impression of
\nspiritual practicality. The combination of these two words,
\nusually so divorced from each other in our conceptions,
\nseems to me the very definition of Dayananda. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nEven if we leave out of account the actual nature of the
\nwork he did, the mere fact that he did it in this spirit and
\nto this effect would give him a unique place among our
\ngreat founders. He brings back an old Aryan element into
\nthe national character. This element gives us the second of
\nthe differentiae I observe and it is the secret of the first.
\nWe others live in a stream of influences; we allow them to
\npour through us and mould us; there is something shaped
\nand out of it a modicum of work results, the rest is spilt
\nout again in a stream of influence. We are indeterminate
\nin our lines, we accommodate ourselves to circumstance
\nand environment. Even when we would fain be militant
\nand intransigent, we are really fluid and opportunist.
\nDayananda seized on all that entered into him, held it in
\nhimself, masterfully shaped it there into the form that he
\nsaw to be right and threw it out again into the forms that
\nhe saw to be right. That which strikes us in him as militant
\nand aggressive, was a part of his strength of self-definition. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nHe was not only plastic to the great hand of Nature, but
\nasserted his own right and power to use Life and Nature as
\nplastic material. We can imagine his soul crying still to us
\nwith our insufficient spring of manhood and action, "Be
\n<\/b>not content, O Indian, only to be infinitely and grow
\nvaguely, but see what God intends thee to be, determine
\nin the light of His inspiration to what thou shalt grow.
\nSeeing, hew that out of thyself, hew that out of Life. Be a <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 46<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthinker, but be also a doer; be a soul, but be also a man; be a servant of God, but be also a master of Nature!" For
\nthis was what he himself was; a man with God in his soul,
\nvision in his eyes and power in his hands to hew out of life
\nan image according to his vision. Hew is the right word.
\nGranite himself, he smote out a shape of things with great
\nblows as in granite. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn Dayananda’s life we see always the puissant jet of
\nthis spiritual practicality. A spontaneous power and
\ndecisiveness is stamped everywhere on his work. And to
\nbegin with, what a master-glance of practical intuition was
\nthis to go back trenchantly to the very root of Indian life
\nand culture, to derive from the flower of its first birth the
\nseed for a radical new birth! And what an act of grandiose
\nintellectual courage to lay hold upon this scripture defaced
\nby ignorant comment and oblivion of its spirit, degraded
\nby misunderstanding to the level of an ancient document
\nof barbarism, and to perceive in it its real worth as a
\nscripture which conceals in itself the deep and energetic
\nspirit of the forefathers who made this country and
\nnation, a scripture of divine knowledge, divine worship,
\ndivine action. I know not whether Dayananda’s powerful
\nand original commentary will be widely accepted as the
\ndefinite word on the Veda. I think myself some delicate
\nwork is still called for to bring out other aspects of this
\nprofound and astonishing Revelation. But this matters
\nlittle. The essential is that he seized justly on the Veda as
\nIndia’s Rock of Ages and had the daring conception to
\nbuild on what his penetrating glance perceived in it a
\nwhole education of youth, a whole manhood and a whole
\nnation-hood. Rammohan Roy, that other great soul and
\npuissant worker who laid his hand on Bengal and shook<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 47<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nher – to what mighty issues out of her long,
\nindolent sleep by her rivers and rice-fields Rammohan Roy
\nstopped short at the Upanishads. Dayananda looked
\nbeyond and perceived that our true original seed was the
\nVeda. He had the national instinct and he was able to
\nmake it luminous, an intuition in place of an instinct.
\nTherefore the works that derive from him, however they
\ndepart from received traditions, must needs be profoundly
\nnational. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTo be national is not to stand still. Rather, to seize on a
\nvital thing out of the past and throw it into the stream of
\nmodern life, is really the most powerful means of renovation and new-creation. Dayananda’s work brings back
\nsuch a principle and spirit of the past to vivify a modern
\nmould. And observe that in the work as in the life it is the
\npast caught in the first jet of its virgin vigour, pure from its
\nsources, near to its root principle and therefore to something eternal and always renewable. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAnd in the work as in the man we find that faculty
\n<\/b>of
\n<\/b>spontaneous definite labour and vigorous formation which
\nproceeds from an inner principle of perfect clearness,
\ntruth and sincerity. To be clear in one’s own mind,
\nentirely true and plain with one’s self and with others,
\nwholly honest with the conditions and materials of one’s
\nlabour, is a rare gift in our crooked, complex and faltering
\nhumanity. It is the spirit of the Aryan worker and a sure
\nsecret of vigorous success. For always Nature recognises a
\nclear, honest and recognisable knock at her doors and
\ngives the result with an answering scrupulosity and diligence. And it is good that the spirit of the Master should
\nleave its trace in his followers, that somewhere in India
\nthere should be a body of whom it can be said that when a <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 48<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwork is seen to be necessary and right, the men will be
\nforthcoming, the means forthcoming and that work will
\nsurely be done. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTruth seems a simple thing and is yet most difficult.
\nTruth was the master-word of the Vedic teaching, truth in
\nthe soul, truth in vision, truth in the intention, truth in the
\nact. Practical truth, ārjava,<\/i> an inner candour and a strong
\nsincerity, clearness and open honour in the word and
\ndeed, was the temperament of the old Aryan morals. It is
\nthe secret of a pure unspoilt energy, the sign that a man
\nhas not travelled far from Nature. It is the bar dexter of
\nthe son of Heaven, Divasputra. This was the stamp that
\nDayananda left behind him and it should be the mark and
\neffigy of himself by which the parentage of his work can be
\nrecognised. May his spirit act in India pure, unspoilt,
\nunmodified and help to give us back that of which our life
\nstands especially in need, pure energy, high clearness, the
\npenetrating eye, the masterful hand, the noble and
\ndominant sincerity.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>(Vedic Magazine,<\/i> 1915) <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nII <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nDAYANANDA AND THE VEDA<\/b> <\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nDayananda accepted the Veda as his rock of firm foundation, he took it for his guiding view of life, his rule of inner
\nexistence and his inspiration for external work, but he
\nregarded it as even more, the word of eternal Truth on
\nwhich man’s knowledge of God and his relations with the
\nDivine Being and with his fellows can be rightly and
\nsecurely founded. This everlasting rock of the Veda, many
\nassert, has no existence, there is nothing there but the
\ncommonest mud and sand; it is only a hymnal of primitive
\nbarbarians, only a rude worship of personified natural
\nphenomena, or even less than that, a liturgy of ceremonial
\nsacrifice, half religion, half magic, by which superstitious
\nanimal men of yore hoped to get themselves gold and food
\nand cattle, slaughter pitilessly their enemies, protect
\nthemselves from disease, calamity and demoniac influences and enjoy the coarse pleasures of a material
\nParadise. To that we must add a third view, the orthodox,
\nor at least that which arises from Sayana’s commentary; this view admits, practically, the ignobler interpretation of
\nthe substance of Veda and yet or is it therefore? exalts
\nthis primitive farrago as a holy Scripture and a Book of
\nSacred Works. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nNow this matter is no mere scholastic question, but has
\na living importance, not only for a just estimate of
\nDayananda’s work but for our consciousness of our past
\nand for the determination of the influences that shall
\nmould our future. A nation grows into what it shall be by <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 50<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe force of that which it was in the past and is in the
\npresent, and in this growth there come periods of conscious and subconscious stock-taking when the national
\nsoul selects, modifies, rejects, keeps out of all that it had
\nor is acquiring whatever it needs as substance and capital
\nfor its growth and action in the future: in such a period of
\nstock-taking we are still and Dayananda was one of its
\ngreat and formative spirits. But among all the materials of
\nour past the Veda is the most venerable and has been
\ndirectly and indirectly the most potent. Even when its
\nsense was no longer understood, even when its traditions
\nwere lost behind Pauranic forms, it was still held in
\nhonour, though without knowledge, as authoritative revelation and inspired Book of Knowledge, the source of all
\nsanctions and standard of all truth. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut there has always been this double and incompatible
\ntradition about the Veda that it is a book of ritual and
\nmythology and that it is a book of divine knowledge. The
\nBrahmanas seized on the one tradition, the Upanishads
\non the other. Later, the learned took the hymns for a
\nbook essentially of ritual and works, they went elsewhere
\nfor pure knowledge; but the instinct of the race bowed
\ndown before it with an obstinate inarticulate memory of a
\nloftier tradition. And when in our age the Veda was
\nbrought out of its obscure security behind the purdah of
\na reverential neglect, the same phenomenon reappears.
\nWhile Western scholarship extending the hints of Sayana
\nseemed to have classed it for ever as a ritual liturgy to
\nNature-Gods, the genius of the race looking through the
\neyes of Dayananda pierced behind the error of many
\ncenturies and received again the intuition of a timeless
\nrevelation and a divine truth given to humanity. In any <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 51<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ncase, we have to make one choice or another. We can no
\nlonger securely enshrine the Veda wrapped up in the folds
\nof an ignorant reverence or guarded by a pious self-deceit.
\nEither the Veda is what Sayana says it is, and then we
\nhave to leave it behind for ever as the document of a
\nmythology and ritual which have no longer any living truth
\nor force for thinking minds, or it is what the European
\nscholars say it is, and then we have to put it away among
\nthe relics of the past as an antique record of semi- barbarous worship; or else it is indeed Veda, a book of
\ndivine knowledge, and then it becomes of supreme importance to us to know and to hear its message. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is objected to the sense Dayananda gave to the Veda
\nthat it is no true sense but an arbitrary fabrication of
\nimaginative learning and ingenuity, to his method that it is
\nfantastic and unacceptable to the critical reason, to his
\nteaching of a revealed Scripture that the very idea is a
\nrejected superstition impossible for any enlightened mind
\nto admit or to announce sincerely. I will not now examine
\nthe solidity of Dayananda’s interpretation of Vedic texts,
\nnor anticipate the verdict of the future on his commentary, nor discuss his theory of revelation. I shall only state
\nthe broad principles underlying his thought about the
\nVeda as they present themselves to me. For in the action
\nand thought of a great soul or a great personality the vital
\nthing to my mind is not the form he gave to it, but in his
\naction the helpful power he put forth and in his thought
\nthe helpful truth he has added or, it may be, restored to
\nthe yet all too scanty stock of our human acquisition and
\ndivine potentiality. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTo start with the negation of his work by his critics, in
\nwhose mouth does it lie to accuse Dayananda’s dealings<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 52<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwith the Veda of a fantastic or arbitrary ingenuity? Not in
\nthe mouth of those who accept Sayana’s traditional interpretation. For if ever there was a monument of arbitrarily
\nerudite ingenuity, of great learning divorced, as great
\nlearning too often is, from sound judgment and sure taste
\nand a faithful critical and comparative observation, from
\ndirect seeing and often even from plainest common sense
\nor of a constant fitting of the text into the Procrustean bed
\nof preconceived theory, it is surely this commentary,
\notherwise so imposing, so useful as first crude material, so
\nerudite and laborious, left to us by the Acharya Sayana.
\nNor does the reproach lie in the mouth of those who take..
\nas final the recent labours of European scholarship. For if; ever there was a toil of interpretation in which the loosest
\nrein has been given to an ingenious speculation, in which
\ndoubtful indications have been snatched at as certain
\nproofs, in which the boldest conclusions have been insisted upon with the scantiest justification, the most
\nenormous difficulties ignored and preconceived prejudice
\nmaintained in face of the clear and often admitted suggestions of the text, it is surely this labour, so eminently
\nrespectable otherwise for its industry, good will and power
\nof research, performed through a long century by European Vedic scholarship. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWhat is the main positive issue in this matter? An
\ninterpretation of Veda must stand or fall by its central
\nconception of the Vedic religion and the amount of
\nsupport given to it by the intrinsic evidence of the Veda
\nitself. Here Dayananda’s view is quite clear, its foundation inexpugnable. The Vedic hymns are chanted to the
\nOne Deity under many names, names which are used and
\neven designed to express His qualities and powers. Was <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 53<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthis conception of Dayananda’s an arbitrary conceit
\nfetched out of his own too ingenious imagination? Not at
\nall; it is the explicit statement of the Veda itself: "One
\nexistent, sages" not the ignorant, mind you, but the
\nseers, the men of knowledge, "speak of in many ways,
\nas Indra, as Yama, as Matarishwan, as Agni." The Vedic
\nRishis ought surely to have known something about their
\nown religion, more, let us hope, than Roth or Max
\nMuller, and this is what they knew. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWe are aware how modern scholars twist away from the
\nevidence. This hymn, they say, was a late production, this
\nloftier idea which it expresses with so clear a force rose up
\nsomehow in the later Aryan mind or was borrowed by
\nthose ignorant fire-worshippers, sun-worshippers, sky-
\nworshippers from their cultured and philosophic Dravidian enemies. But throughout the Veda we have confirmatory hymns and expressions: Agni or Indra or another
\nis expressly hymned as one with all the other gods. Agni
\ncontains all other divine powers within himself, the
\nMaruts are described as all the gods, one deity is addressed by the names of others as well as his own, or, most
\ncommonly, he is given as Lord and King of the universe
\nattributes only appropriate to the Supreme Deity. Ah, but
\nthat cannot mean, ought not to mean, must not mean, the
\nworship of the One; let us invent a new word, call it
\nhenotheism and suppose that the Rishis did not really
\nbelieve Indra or Agni to be the Supreme Deity but treated
\nany god or every god as such for the nonce, perhaps that
\nhe might feel the more flattered and lend a more gracious
\near for so hyperbolic a compliment! But why should not
\nthe foundation of Vedic thought be natural monotheism
\nrather than this new-fangled monstrosity of henotheism? <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 54<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nWell, because primitive barbarians could not possibly
\nhave risen to such high conceptions and, if you allow them
\nto have so risen, you imperil our theory of the evolutionary stages of the human development and you destroy
\nour whole idea about the sense of the Vedic hymns and
\ntheir place in the history of mankind. Truth must hide
\nherself, common sense disappear from the field so that a
\ntheory may flourish! I ask, in this point, and it is the
\n<\/i>fundamental point, who deals most straightforwardly with
\nthe text, Dayananda or the Western scholars? <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut if this fundamental point of Dayananda’s is granted, if the character given by the Vedic Rishis themselves
\nto their gods is admitted, we are bound, whenever the
\nhymns speak of Agni or another, to see behind that name
\npresent always to the thought of the Rishi the one
\nSupreme Deity or else one of His powers with its attendant qualities or
\nworkings. Immediately the whole character of the Veda is fixed in the sense Dayananda gave to
\nit; the merely ritual, mythological, polytheistic interpretation of Sayana collapses, the merely meteorological and
\nnaturalistic European interpretation collapses. We have
\ninstead a real Scripture, one of the world’s sacred books
\nand the divine word of a lofty and noble religion. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAll the rest of Dayananda’s theory arises logically out of
\nthis fundamental conception. If the names of the godheads express qualities of the one Godhead and it is these
\nwhich the Rishis adored and towards which they directed
\ntheir aspiration, then there must inevitably be in the Veda
\na large part of psychology of the Divine Nature, psychology of the relations of man with God and a constant
\nindication of the law governing man’s Godward conduct.
\nDayananda asserts the presence of such an ethical element,<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 55<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nhe finds in the Veda the law of life given by God to
\nthe human being. And if the Vedic godheads express the
\npowers of a supreme Deity who is Creator, Ruler and
\nFather of the universe, then there must inevitably be in
\nthe Veda a large part of cosmology, the law of creation
\nand of cosmos. Dayananda asserts the presence of such a
\ncosmic element, he finds in the Veda the secrets of
\ncreation and law of Nature by which the Omniscient
\ngoverns the world. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nNeither Western scholarship nor ritualistic learning has
\nsucceeded in eliminating the psychological and ethical
\nvalue of the hymns, but they have both tended in different
\ndegrees to minimise it. Western scholars minimise because they feel uneasy
\nwhenever ideas that are not primitive seem to insist on their presence in these
\nprimeval utterances; they do not hesitate openly to abandon in
\ncertain passages interpretations which they adopt in
\nothers and which are admittedly necessitated by their own
\nphilological and critical reasoning because, if admitted
\nalways, they would often involve deep and subtle psychological conceptions which cannot<\/i> have occurred to primitive minds! Sayana minimises
\nbecause his theory of Vedic discipline was not ethical righteousness with a
\nmoral and spiritual result but mechanical performance of ritual with . a
\nmaterial reward. But, in spite of these efforts of suppression, the lofty ideas of the Vedas still reveal themselves in strange contrast to its alleged burden of fantastic
\nnaturalism or dull ritualism. The Vedic godheads are
\nconstantly hymned as Masters of Wisdom, Power, Purity,
\npurifiers, healers of grief and evil, destroyers of sin and
\nfalsehood, warriors for the truth; constantly the Rishis
\npray to them for healing and purification, to be made <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 56<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nseers of knowledge, possessors of the truth, to be upheld
\nin the divine law, to be assisted and armed with strength,
\nmanhood and energy. Dayananda has brought this idea of
\nthe divine right and truth into the Veda; the Veda is as
\nmuch and more a book of divine Law as Hebrew Bible or
\nZoroastrian Avesta. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe cosmic element is not less conspicuous in the Veda; the Rishis speak always of the worlds, the firm laws that
\ngovern them, the divine workings in the cosmos. But
\nDayananda goes farther; he affirms that the truths of
\nmodern physical science are discoverable in the hymns.
\nHere we have the sole point of fundamental principle
\nabout which there can be any justifiable misgivings. I
\nconfess my incompetence to advance any settled opinion
\nin the matter. But this much needs to be said that his idea
\nis increasingly supported by the recent trend of our knowledge about the ancient world. The ancient civilisations did
\npossess secrets of science some of which modern knowledge has recovered, extended and made more rich and
\nprecise but others are even now not recovered. There is
\nthen nothing fantastic in Dayananda’s idea that Veda
\ncontains truth of science as well as truth of religion. I will
\neven add my own conviction that Veda contains other
\ntruths of a science the modern world does not at all
\npossess, and in that case Dayananda has rather understated than overstated the depth and range of the Vedic
\nwisdom. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nObjection has also been made to the philological and
\netymological method by which he arrived at his results,
\nespecially in his dealings with the names of the godheads.
\nBut this objection, I feel certain, is an error due to our
\nintroduction of modern ideas about language into our <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 57<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nstudy of this ancient tongue. We moderns use words as
\ncounters without any memory or appreciation of their
\noriginal sense; when we speak we think of the object
\nspoken of, not at all of the expressive word which is to us a
\ndead and brute thing, mere coin of verbal currency with
\nno value of its own. In early language the word was on the
\ncontrary a living thing with essential powers of signification; its root meanings were remembered because they
\nwere still in use, its wealth of force was vividly present to
\nthe mind of the speaker. We say "wolf and think only of
\nthe animal, any other sound would have served our
\npurpose as well, given the convention of its usage; the
\nancients said "tearer" and had that significance present to
\nthem. We say "agni" and think of fire, the word is of no
\nother use to us; to the ancients "agni" means other things
\nbesides and only because of one or more of its root
\nmeanings was applied to the physical object fire. Our
\nwords are carefully limited to one or two senses, theirs
\nwere capable of a great number and it was quite easy for
\nthem, if they so chose, to use a word like Agni, Varuna or
\nVayu as a sound-index of a great number of connected
\nand complex ideas, a key-word. It cannot be doubted that
\nthe Vedic Rishis did take advantage of this greater
\npotentiality of their language, note their dealings with
\nsuch words as gau<\/i> and candra.<\/i> The Nirukta bears evidence
\nto this capacity and in the Brahmanas and Upanishads we
\nfind the memory of this free and symbolic use of words
\nstill subsisting. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nCertainly, Dayananda had not the advantage that a
\ncomparative study of languages gives <\/b> to the European
\nscholar. There are defects in the ancient Nirukta which
\nthe new learning, though itself sadly defective, still helps <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 58<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nus to fill in and in future we shall have to use both sources
\nof light for the elucidation of Veda. Still this only affects
\nmatters of detail and does not touch the fundamental
\nprinciples of Dayananda’s interpretation. Interpretation
\nin detail is a work of intelligence and scholarship and in
\nmatters of intelligent opinion and scholarship men seem
\nlikely to differ to the end of the chapter, but in all the
\nbasic principles, in those great and fundamental decisions
\nwhere the eye of intuition has to aid the workings of the
\nintellect, Dayananda stands justified by the substance of
\nVeda itself, by logic and reason and by our growing
\nknowledge of the past of mankind. The Veda does hymn
\nthe one Deity of many names and powers; it does celebrate the divine Law and man’s aspiration to fulfil it; it
\ndoes purport to give us the law of the cosmos. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nOn the question of revelation I have left myself no
\nspace to write. Suffice it to say that here too Dayananda
\nwas perfectly logical and it is quite grotesque to charge
\nhim with insincerity because he held to and proclaimed
\nthe doctrine. There are always three fundamental entities
\nwhich we have to admit and whose relations we have to
\nknow if we would understand existence at all, God,
\nNature and the Soul. If, as Dayananda held on strong
\nenough grounds, the Veda reveals to us God, reveals to us
\nthe law of Nature, reveals to us the relations of the soul to
\nGod and Nature, what is it but a revelation of divine
\nTruth? And if, as Dayananda held, it reveals them to us
\nwith a perfect truth, flawlessly, he might well hold it for an
\ninfallible Scripture. The rest is a question of the method of
\nrevelation, of the divine dealings with our race, of man’s
\npsychology and possibilities. Modern thought, affirming
\nNature and Law but denying God, denied also the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 59<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\npossibility of revelation; but so also has it denied many
\nthings which a more modern thought is very busy reaffirming. We cannot demand of a great mind that it shall make
\nitself a slave to vulgarly received opinion or the transient
\ndogmas of the hour; the very essence of its greatness is
\nthis, that it looks beyond, that it sees deeper. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn the matter of Vedic interpretation I am convinced
\nthat whatever may be the final complete interpretation,
\nDayananda will be honoured as the first discoverer of the
\nright clues. Amidst the chaos and obscurity of old ignorance and age-long misunderstanding his was the eye of
\ndirect vision that pierced to the truth and fastened on that
\nwhich was essential. He has found the keys of the doors
\nthat time had closed and rent asunder the seals of the
\nimprisoned fountains. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n(Vedic Magazine,<\/i> 1916) <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 60<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nTHE MEN THAT PASS
\n<\/a> <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nRomesh Chandra Dutt is dead. After a long life of the
\nmost manifold and untiring energy, famous, honoured,
\nadvanced in years, with a name known in England as well
\nas in India, the man always successful, always favoured of
\nFortune, always striving to deserve her by skill and
\ndiligence, type of a race that passes, of a generation that
\nto younger minds is fast losing the appearance of reality
\nand possibility, has passed away at the height and summit
\nof his career before his great capacities could justify
\nthemselves to the full in his new station, but also before
\nthe defects of his type could be thoroughly subjected to
\nthe severe ordeal of the times that have come upon us.
\nThe landmarks of the past fall one by one and none rise in
\ntheir place. The few great survivors here and there
\nbecome more and more dignified monuments of the last
\ncentury and less and less creators of the living present.
\nNew ideals, new problems, new men, almost a new race
\nwholly different in mind, character, temperament, feeling, rise swiftly and wait till they can open the gates of the
\nfuture and occupy the field of action. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe official, the liberal Congress politician, the
\nwell-read litterateur, the Oriental scholar, the journalist proficient in English and fluent of Western ideas, the professional man successful and sleek, these were the foremost
\nmen of the old generation, those who were in the eyes of
\nall śreṣtha,<\/i> the best, in whose footsteps, therefore, alt
\nstrove to follow and on whose pattern all formed themselves. An active, self-confident, voiceful generation
\nmaking up by these qualities for the lack of height, depth <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 63<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nand breadth in their culture and atoning for the unoriginal
\nimitativeness to which they were doomed by the fidelity in
\ndetail and framework of the imitation! In all but one of
\nthese lines of activity Romesh Dutt had achieved a high
\ndistinction among the men of his own generation, and we
\ndoubt whether another man could be pointed out among
\nthem so many-sided, so full of strength and hope and
\nenergy, so confident, so uniformly successful. Nature was
\nliberal to him of her gifts. Fortune of her favours. A
\nsplendid physique, robust and massive, equipped him to
\nbear the strain of an unceasing activity: a nature buoyant,
\nsanguine, strong, as healthy as his frame, armed him
\nagainst the shocks of life and commanded success by
\ninsisting upon it; an egoism natural to such a robust
\nvitality seized on all things as its provender and enabled its
\npossessor thoroughly to enjoy the good things of life
\nwhich it successfully demanded; a great tact and savoir
\nfaire<\/i> steered him clear of unnecessary friction and avoidable difficulties; an unrivalled quickness of grasp, absorption and assimilation, more facile than subtle or deep,
\nhelped him to make his own all that he heard or read; a
\nrapid though not ingenious brain showed him how to use
\nhis material with the best effect and most practical utility; and a facile pen and speech which never paused for a
\nthought or a word, could always be trusted to clothe what
\nhe wished to convey in a form respectable and effective
\nand so well put as to conceal the absence of native literary
\nfaculty and intellectual distinction. These were Nature’s
\npresents to him at his birth. Fortune placed him in a
\nwealthy, well-read and well-known family, gave him the
\nbest advantages of education the times could afford, sent
\nhim to England and opened the doors of the Civil Service, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 64<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe pinnacle of the young Indian’s aspiration in his days,
\nand crowned him with the highest prizes that that highest
\nof careers could yield to a man of his hue and blood. It is
\ncharacteristic of his career that he should have died as
\nPrime Minister of the Indian State which has been most
\nsuccessful in reproducing and improving upon the Anglo-Indian model of administration. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere were limits, as we have hinted, to the liberality of
\nNature. Of all the great Bengalis of his time Romesh Dutt
\nwas perhaps the least original. His administrative faculties
\nwere of the second order, not of the first; though he stood
\nfor a time foremost among the most active of Congress
\npoliticians and controversialists, he was neither a Ranade
\nnor a Surendranath, had neither the gift of the organiser
\nand political thinker nor the gift of the orator; he had
\nliterary talent of an imitative kind but no literary genius; he wrote well on scholastic subjects and translated pleasantly and effectively, but was no great Sanskrit scholar: he cannot rank with Ranade or even with Gokhale as an
\neconomist, and yet his are the most politically effective
\ncontributions to economic literature in India that recent
\nyears have produced. It must be admitted that his activity
\nand dexterity of work were far in excess of his literary
\nability or scholastic conscientiousness. It is doubtful,
\ntherefore, whether any of his voluminous works in many
\nkinds will be remembered, with the possible though not
\nvery certain exception of his Bengali historical novels in
\nwhich he touched his creative highwater mark. His translation of the Rigveda by its ease and crispness blinds the
\nuninitiated reader to the fact that it may be a very pretty
\ntranslation but it is not the Veda. His history of ancient
\nIndian civilisation is a masterly compilation, void of <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 65<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\noriginal research, which is rapidly growing antiquated. In
\nfact, the one art he possessed in the highest degree and in
\nwhich alone it can be said that he did not only well but
\nbest, was the art of the journalist and pamphleteer.
\nOriginality and deep thought are not required of a journalist, nor delicacy, nor subtlety; his success would be
\nlimited rather than .assisted by such qualities. To seize
\nvictoriously on the available materials, catch in them what
\nwill be interesting and effective and put it brightly and
\nclearly, this is the dharma<\/i> of the journalist, and, if we add
\nthe power of making the most of a case and enforcing a
\ngiven view with irresistible energy, dexterity and apparent
\nunanswerableness, we shall have added all that is necessary to turn the journalist into the pamphleteer. No man
\nof our time has had these gifts to the same extent as
\nRomesh Dutt. The best things he ever did were, in our
\nview, his letters to Lord Curzon and his Economic
\nHistory. The former fixed public opinion in India irretrievably and nobody cared
\neven to consider Lord Curzon’s answer. "That settles it" was the general feeling
\nevery ordinary reader contracted for good after reading
\nthis brilliant and telling indictment. Without the Economic History and its damning story of England’s commercial and fiscal dealings with India we doubt whether the
\npublic mind would have been ready for the Boycott. In
\nthis one instance it may be said of him that he not only
\nwrote history but created it. But all his works, with the
\nexception of the historical novels, were rather pieces of
\nsuccessful journalism than literature. Still, even where it
\nwas most defective, his work was always useful to the
\nworld. For instance, his Ramayana and Mahabharata,
\nthough they are poor and commonplace poetry and do <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 66<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nunpardonable violence to the spirit of the original, yet
\nfamiliarised the average reader in England with the stories
\nof the epics and thus made the way easy for future
\ninterpreters of the East to the West. In brief, this may be
\nsaid in unstinted praise of Romesh Dutt, that he was a
\ngigantic worker and did an immense amount of pioneer
\nspadework by which the future will benefit. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWe have dwelt on this interesting and vigorous personality as one of the most typical of the men that pass,
\nmuch more typical than greater or more original contemporaries. The work they did is over and the qualities with
\nwhich they were equipped for that work will no longer
\nsufficiently serve our purpose. An education at once more
\nsubtle and more massive, a greater originality, force and
\nrange of intellectual activity, an insatiable thirst for
\nknowledge, the glut of a giant for work and action, mighty
\nqualities of soul, a superhuman courage, self-abnegation
\nand power to embrace and practise almost impossible
\nideals, these are the virtues and gifts India demands from
\nthe greatest among her sons in the future so that they may
\nbe sufficient to her work and her destinies. But such gifts
\nas Romesh Dutt possessed are not to be despised.
\nEspecially did his untiring capacity for work and his
\njoyous vitality and indestructible buoyancy make him a
\ntowering reproach to the indolent, listless, sneering and
\nanaemic generation that intervened between him and the
\nrecent renascence. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n(Karmayogin \u2014<\/i> 4th October, 1909)<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 67 <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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