QUOTES ON SCRIPTURES - II
QUOTES ON SCRIPTURES: II
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| The KNOWLEDGE !! The Philosophy of Sanatana Dharma |
In an earlier blog I had posted some quotes by some of the greatest intellectual minds of modern times. This posting is a continuation of the same.
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| Alan Watts (1915-1973) |
"There is an unrecognized but mighty taboo--our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are. Briefly, the thesis is that the prevalent sensation of oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin is a hallucination which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy religions of the East--in particular the central and germinal Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. This hallucination underlies the misuse of technology for the violent subjugation of man's natural environment and, consequently, its eventual destruction. It is rather a cross-fertilization of Western science with an Eastern intuition".
"To the philosophers
of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light
years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in
millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise
men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this
knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of
innumerable ways of applying it."
"It is, indeed, a remarkable circumstance that when
Western civilization discovers Relativity it applies it to the manufacture of
atom-bombs, whereas Oriental civilization applies it to the development of new
states of consciousness."
"It was once customary to refer to these
people of India and China as heathens....apart from Sufism, the Near East
produced nothing to approach the high level of mystical and psychological
philosophy attained in India and China."
"Hinduism, therefore, is perhaps the most catholic of all religions, for it has not become so in the course of its evolution but was based on the principle of catholicity from the beginnings. Those who laid down the code of Manu made provision both for different mentalities and different vocations in the most through going manner; they showed an understanding of the social organism which in subsequent times has seldom been equaled..."
"It is almost certain, however, that Taoist Yoga
was derived in great measure from India, and it is here that we must look for
the greater wealth of information."
***
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| A Stone carving of Shri Krishna on a temple wall |
" It will no longer remain to be
doubted that the priests of Egypt and the sages of Greece have drawn directly
from the original well of India," that it is to 'the banks of the Ganga
and the Indus that our hearts feel drawn as by some hidden urge."
And again:
"Towards the Orient, to the banks of the Ganga
and the Indus, it is there our hearts feel drawn by some hidden urge - it is
there that all the dark presentiments point which lie in the depths of our
heart...In the Orient, the heavens poured forth into the earth."
***
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| Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) |
JOHANN GOTTFRIED HERDER: German philosopher,
poet and critic, clergyman, born in East Prussia. Herder was an enormously
influential literary critic and a leader in the Sturn und Drang movement.
According to him, "mankind's origins can
be traced to India, where the human mind got the first shapes of wisdom and
virtue with a simplicity, strength and sublimity which has - frankly spoken -
nothing, nothing at all equivalent in our philosophical, cold European
world."
Herder regarded
the Hindus (because of their ethical teachings) as the most gentle and peaceful
people on earth. Herder's "Thoughts
of Some Brahmins "(1792) which contains a selection of gnomic stanzas in free
translations, gathered from Bhartrihari-भार्तिहारी, the Hitopdesa हितोपदेश and the Bhagavad Gita भग्वद गीता ,
expressed these ideals.
He pointed out to the spiritual treasures of
India in search of which later German Sanskritists and Indologists had devoted
their lives. Herder admired India, as did Novalis and Heine, for
its simplicity, and denounced the Europeans for their greed, corruption, and
economic exploitation of India.
When George Forster sent him his German translation of the English version of the Sakuntalam शकुन्तलम in 1791, Herder responded: "I cannot easily find a product of human mind more pleasant than this...a real blossom of the Orient, and the first, most beautiful of its kind! ....Something like that, of course appears once every two thousand years."
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| A scene of Kalidasa's love classic, AbhignyanShakuntalam which shows Dushyant and Shakuntala |
Note: MahaKavi Kalidasa महाकवि कालिदास was a poet and one of the earliest dramatists in Sanskrit. He has many classics still quite popular in modern times. Two specifically can be found on stalls: 'Abhignana-Shakuntalam' अभीज्ञानशकुंतालम and 'Meghadutam. मेघदूतम'
Herder published a detailed study and an analysis of AbhignyanSakuntalam, claiming that this work disproved the popular belief that drama was
the exclusive invention of the ancient Greeks. "O holy land
(India), I salute thee, thou source of all music, thou voice of the heart' and
"Behold the East - cradle of the human race, of human emotion, of all
religion."
Like Sir William Jones, Herder, a Lutheran pastor,
was also attracted by the Vedic ideas of pantheism and of world-soul (Atman),
both of which came to be viewed by the German Romantics as providing support
for their own views about the transcendent wholeness and the fundamentally
spiritual essence of the natural world.
He characterized Indian art as "a monument of a philosophical system in the
history of mankind." He doubted therefore "whether
any other people on earth have treated symbolism in art as thoroughly as
Indians."
***
TROY WILSON ORGAN a professor at Ohio University and author of The Hindu
quest for the perfection of man and Hinduism;
its historical development, wrote: "Hindu thought is not a philosophy. It is a
philosophical religion... "Hinduism is a sadhana which seeks to guide man
to integration, to spiritualization, and to liberation......The concept of
reincarnation is the Hindu way of asserting that there are no temporal nor developmental
limits to the perfecting. Hindu thought is natural,
reasonable, and scientific. It is a process, not a result - a process of
perfecting man. In the Hindu Monism (Advaita-NonDual-अद्वैत ) God is not
anthropomorphic being. He is All; He is not a despot or autocratic God."
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| SARASVATI - सरस्वती The Goddess of Knowledge & Wisdom |
***
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| Andre Malraux (1901-1976) |
ANDRE MALRAUX: author of Anti-memoir, profound thinker and French writer, essayist, novelist, art-historian, and political
speech writer, Malraux did give his readers a
philosophy.
"The problem of this century is
the religious problem and the discovery of Hindu thought will have a great deal
to do with the solving of that particular problem".
“Europe is destructive, suicidal,” said André Malraux to Nehru in 1936, whom he would meet several times until 1960s, trying in vain to persuade him of the relevance of India’s spirituality in today’s world.
Malraux
also reflected: "...The West regards as truth what the Hindu regards as
appearance (for if human life, in the age of Christendom, was doubtless an
ordeal it was certainly truth and not illusion), and the Westerner can regard
knowledge of the the universe as the supreme value, while for the Hindu the
supreme value is accession to the divine Absolute. But the
most profound difference is based on the fact that the fundamental reality for
the West, Christian or athiest, is death, in whatever sense it may be
interpreted --- while the fundamental reality for India is the endlessness of life in the
endlessness of time: Who can kill immortality?"
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| Dr. KARAN SINGH (1931- -) |
Dr.
KARAN SINGH: heir apparent to the
Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir, Indian Ambassador to the U.S. and an
outstanding thinker and leader. He is a
philosopher, environmentalist, statesman, orator, author and politician.
He is the
author of Essays on Hinduism (1990) and he has remarked: "The Entire Brahmand (ब्रह्माण्ड-Cosmos) is all pervaded by the same
divine power. there is no ultimate duality in human existence or in
consciousness. This is a truth which in
the West is only recently being under stood after Einstein and Heisenberg and
quantum mechanics. The Newtonian-Cartesian-Marxist paradigm of materialistic
universe has now been finally abolished, it has collapsed in the face of the
new physics. Our ancient seers had a deeper insight into the nature of reality
than people had even until very recently".
He further wrote: "The master principles upon which Hinduism is based are to be found
essentially in the Upanishads, which represent the high watermark not only of
Indian but of world philosophy. It is in these luminous dialogues that the
great issues confronting humanity have been addressed in a manner that seems to
grow in relevance as we move into the global society."
"The first and most basic concept is that of
the all-pervasive Brahman (ब्राह्मण-The Supreme God) - “Isavasyam idam sarvam yat kincha jagatyam jagat” इशावास्यम इदम सर्वम यत किञ्च जगत्यम जगत - (Whatever exists and wherever it exists is permeated by the same divine power.)
While many philosophies have postulated unbridgeable dichotomies between god
and the world, matter and spirit, the Upanishadic view is that all that exists
is a manifestation without the light of consciousness behind it, and this, in a
way, is the realization of the new science.
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| KALPA कल्प - A Day in the Life of Brahma-The Creator |
Another important Vedantic concept is that all
human beings, because of their shared spirituality, are members of a single
family. The Upanishads have an extraordinary phrase for the human race,
‘Amritasya putrah’ (अमृतस्य पुत्रः - Children of immortality), because we carry within our
consciousness the light and the power of the Brahman regardless of race,
colour, creed, sex, caste or nationality. That is the basis of the concept of
human beings as an extended family — ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’- वासुदेव कुटुम्बकम which is
engraved on the first gate into our Parliament House.
***
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| August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845) |
AUGUST WILHELM VON SCHLEGEL: German Scholar and
Poet who also learnt Sanskrit. The impulse to Indological studies was
first given in Germany, through his book, 'The
Language and Wisdom of the Indians' which appeared in 1818. He
wrote The Bhagavat-geeta, or, Dialogues of Krishna and Arjun : in eighteen
lectures.
"The divine origin of man, as taught in
Vedanta, is continually inculcated, to stimulate his efforts to return, to
animate him in the struggle, and incite him to consider a reunion and
re-incorporation with Divinity as the one primary object of every action and
reaction. Even the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans, the idealism of reason
as it is set forth by the Greek philosophers, appears in comparison with the
abundant light and vigor of Oriental idealism like a feeble Promethean spark in
the full fold of heavenly glory of the noonday sun, faltering and feeble and
ever ready to be extinguished."
Schlegel edited original text of the Bhagavad
Gita भगवद गीता,
together with a Latin translation, and paid tribute to its authors: "I shall always adore the imprints of their feet"
In his book, Wisdom
of the Ancient Indians, he wrote, "It cannot be denied that
the early Indians possessed a knowledge of the God. All their writings are
replete with sentiments and expressions, noble, clear, severely grand, as
deeply conceived in any human language in which men have spoken of their
God..."
Hindu philosophy in comparison with which, in the words of Schlegel, "even
the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans appears like a feeble
Promethean spark in the full flood of heavenly glory of the noonday sun
faltering and feeble and ever ready to be extinguished. The Divine origin of
man is continually inculcated to stimulate his efforts to return, to animate
him in the struggle and incite him to consider a re-union and re-corporation
with Divinity as the one primary object of every action and exertion."
***
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| Jawaharlal Nehru(1889-1964) |
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU: The first prime minister
of free India. He was particularly drawn to Swami Vivekananda and the Sri
Ramakrishna Ashram. The Upanishads fascinated him. Nehru called the Vedas as: "The unfolding of the
human mind in the earliest stages of thought. And what a wonderful mind
it was!"
"It is the first outpourings of the human mind, the glow of
poetry, the rapture at nature's loveliness and mystery." A brooding spirit
crept in gradually till the author of the Vedas cried out: 'O Faith, endow us
with belief'. It raised deeper question in a hymn called the ' The Song of
Creation'.
"The Bhagavad-Gita deals essentially with the
spiritual foundation of human existence. It is a call of action to meet the
obligations and duties of life; yet keeping in view the spiritual nature
and grander purpose of the universe."
"I am proud of this noble heritage which was
and still is ours, and I am aware that I too, like all of us, am a link in that
uninterrupted chain which finds its origin in the dawn of history, in India's
immemorial past. It is in testimony of this and as a last homage to the
cultural heritage of India that I request that a handful of my ashes be thrown
in the Ganga (Ganges-गंगा) at Allahabad (formerly
known as Prayag) so that they may be borne to the vast ocean that bears on the
shores of India."
Jawaharlal Nehru, in his book - A
Discovery of India wrote: "The statue of Nataraja (dance pose of Lord
Shiva) is a well known example for the artistic, scientific and philosophical
significance of Hinduism."
***
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| A. E. GEORGE RUSSEL (1867-1935) |
Russel paid an eloquent tribute to the Upanishads and the Bhagavad
Gita. "'Goethe, Wordsworth, Emerson, and Thoreau among moderns have something of this
vitality and wisdom but we can find all they have said and much more in the
grand sacred books of India."
"The Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads contain such godlike fullness of wisdom on all things that I feel the authors must have looked with calm remembrance back through a thousand passionate lives, full of feverish strife for and with shadows, ere they could have written with such certainty of things which the soul feels to be sure."
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***
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| PAUL DEUSSEN with wife (1845-1919) |
PAUL DEUSSEN: disciple of Arthur Schopenhauer, preferred to be called in Sanskrit, Deva-Sena देवा सेना (Army of God), was a scholar of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal, has observed: "Whatever may be the discoveries
of the scientific mind, none can dispute the eternal truths propounded by the
Upanishads. Though
they may appear as riddles, the key to solving them lies in our heart and if
one were to approach them with an open mind one could secure the treasure as
did the Rishis of ancient times"
About Vedanta, he said : "It is now, as in the
ancient times, living in the mind and heart of every thoughtful
Hindu."
He writes
in the Philosophy of the
Upanishads, "God, the sole author of all good in us,
is not, as in the Old Testament, a Being contrasted with and distinct from us,
but rather.....our divine self. This and much more we may learn
the lesson if we are willing to put the finishing touch to the Christian
consciousness, and make it on all sides consistent and complete. The Vedanta gives profoundly based reasons for all
charity and brotherliness." Dr. Deussen says, "the fact is nevertheless
that the highest and purest morality is the immediate consequence of the
Vedanta. The Gospels fix quite correctly as the highest law of morality 'love
your neighbor as yourself'. But why should I do so, since by the order of nature
I feel pain and pleasure only in myself and not in my neighbor?"
"The answer is not," he says, "in the Bible, but it is in the Veda, in the great formula: 'That thou art' (Tat tvam asi-तत त्वं असि ) which gives in three words, metaphysics and morals together."
In his Philosophy
of the Upanishads,
recently translated by Rev. A. S. Geden, Prof. Deussen claims, for its
fundamental thought "an inestimable
value for the whole race of mankind." It is in "marvelous
agreement with the philosophy founded by Kant, and adopted and perfected by his
great successor Schopenhauer." differing from it, where it does differ,
only to excel.
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| The DHARM-CHAKRA धर्म-चक्र |
"the Upanishads have tackled every
fundamental problem of life. They have given us an intimate account of
reality."
"On the tree of wisdom
there is no fairer flower than the Upanishads,
and no finer fruit than the Vedanta philosophy,' and he added, 'The system of
Vedanta, as founded on the Upanishads and Vedanta
Sutras and accompanied by Shankara's
commentary on them---equal in rank to Plato and Kant---is one of the most
valuable products of the genius of mankind in his researches of the eternal
truth.'
Regarding the Cosmological hymn in the Rig
Veda, he
wrote: "In its noble simplicity,
in the loftiness of its philosophic vision it is possibly the most admirable
bit of philosophy of olden times. .. .. .. No translation can ever do justice
to the beauty of the original."
***
F. C. Frederick Crossfield Happold: Author of several books, including Mysticism:
a study and an anthology and Religious
faith and twentieth-century man, said about the Upanishads: "The most profound and revolutionary
statement on the nature of reality, which mankind has as yet made"
***
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| THE TREE OF LIFE & KNOWLEDGE |
JOHN ELIGNTON: author of A
Memoir of A E Russell, wrote: "The Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads
contain such godlike fullness of wisdom on all things that I feel the authors
'Goethe, Wordsworth, Emerson and Thoreau among moderns have something of this
vitality and wisdom, but we can find all they have said and much more in the
grand sacred books of the East. TheBhagavad
Gita and Upanishads contain such godlike fullness of
wisdom on all things that I feel the authors must have looked with calm
remembrance back through a thousand passionate lives, full of feverish strife
for and with shadows, ere they could have written with such certainly of things
which the soul feels to he sure."
***
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| VISHNU - The Lord of the Universe |
ASHBY PHILIPS: Princeton University echoes: "The Hindu argument that all religions are
equally valid may well sweep the world in the next 25 years. It may well be that
within the foreseeable future, it will be Hinduism which will be challenging
Christianity not only in India but in the west as well. Hinduism indeed has a new
vitality not only suitable for defense but also adaptable for offense against
Western religions."
***
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| Nani Ardeshir Palkhiwala(1920-2002) |
NANI ARDESHIR PALKHIWALA: brilliant lawyer and philanthropist. Former prime minister Morarji Desai had described
him as 'India's finest intellectual'. Former Director of Press Trust of India (PTI) representing
public interest since 1985. C Rajagopalachari had once
observed, ''Nani is God's gift to India''. India's best known constitutional
lawyer, author, former Indian ambassador to the US, has said: "India is eternal. Though the beginnings of her numerous
civilizations go so far back in time that they are lost in the twilight of
history, she has the gift of perpetual youth. Her culture is ageless and is as relevant to this
present 20th century as it was to the 20th century before Christ."
"Our culture is primarily concerned with spiritual development is of special significance in our age which is marked by the obsolescence of the materialistic civilization. Ahimsa, peace and non-aggression were the hallmarks of Indian culture. In her crowded history of over 5,000 years during which she had thrown up vast and puissant empires, India never practiced military aggression on countries outside her borders. Thanks to our ethos, even today the Indian people patiently suffer miseries and endure injustices which would result in devastating explosions in any other country. In these days of spiritual illiteracy and poverty of the spirit, when people find that wealth can only multiply itself and attain nothing, when people have to deceive their souls with counterfeit after having killed the poetry of life, it is necessary to remind ourselves that civilization is an act of the spirit."
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| THE ASHOKA CHAKRA अशोक-चक्र The symbol on India's flag. |
"It has been my long-standing conviction that India is like a donkey carrying a sack of gold - the donkey does not know what it is carrying but is content to go along with the load on its back. The load of gold is the fantastic treasure - in arts, literature, culture, and some sciences like Ayurvedic medicine - which we have inherited from the days of the splendor that was India."
"Indian culture encouraged the cultivation of the intellect, not as a commodity for sale in the market-place, but for the inner joy experienced by the questing mind."
"Modern India will find her identity and the
modern Indian will regain his soul when our people begin to have some
understanding of our priceless heritage. A nation which has had a great past
can look forward with confidence to a great future. It would be restorative to
national self-confidence to know that many discoveries of today are really
re-discoveries and represent knowledge which ancient India had at her command.
World thinkers have stood in marvel at the sublimity of our scriptures."
HUSTON SMITH: China born, to
Methodist missionaries, a philosopher, most eloquent writer, world-famous
religion scholar who practices Hatha Yoga. Has taught at MIT and is
currently visiting professor at Univ. of California at Berkley. Smith has also
produced PBS series.
He has written various books, The World's Religions, "Science and Human Responsibility", and "The Religions of Man".
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He has written various books, The World's Religions, "Science and Human Responsibility", and "The Religions of Man".
What he found in Vedantic Hinduism he described as: "a profundity of world view that made my Christianity look like third grade." He was "perfectly content" with Christianity until the Vedanta came into his life some five decades ago. "When I read the Upanishads, I found a profundity of world view that made my Christianity seem like third grade."
"Men and women that are lining the Bathing Ghats are all Hindus, but how different they are. But India looked past their bodies into their minds where she found the prolific ness of the infinite exploding like a Roman cantle. No other civilization saw, appreciated, and classified so precisely the full spectrum of human personality types…an achievement that has earned for India – the title of the world’s introspective psychologist. The key to this psychological perceptiveness is her recognition to the extent to which people will differ and the degree to which these differences are to be respected."
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| The knowledge from the Sanskrit scriptures is vast and comprehensive. It covers virtually every aspect of human life and vast fields of sciences |
"The stages of life - The kind of person and way we approach God – affective – loving him, reflective person – by knowing him, active person – by serving him, contemplative – by meditating. All four of these way to yoga – union reach the same summit – which you follow depends on your spiritual temperament. Side of the mountain – which you start climbing.Hinduism’s cosmology was prodigious in scope and depth, but India did not stop there. She went on to advance what was probably the most daring hypothesis man has ever conceived. We are ourselves are the infinite, the very infinite from which the Universe proceeds. Everything in Hinduism works to drive the point home."
Here are Smith's views on Symbols
and Idols of Hinduism: "Enter Hinduism’s myths, her magnificent symbols, her several
hundred images of God, her rituals that keep turning night and day like
never-ending prayer wheels. It is obtuse to confuse Hinduism’s images with
idolatry, and their multiplicity with polytheism. They are 'runways' from which
the sense-laden human spirit can rise for its "flight of the alone to the
Alone".
Even village priest will frequently open their temple ceremonies with the following beloved invocation:
Even village priest will frequently open their temple ceremonies with the following beloved invocation:
O Lord,
forgive three sins that are due to my human limitations:
Thou art everywhere, but I worship you here;
Thou art without form, but I worship you in these forms;
Thou needest no praise, yet I offer you these prayers and salutations,
Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my human
limitations.
“The invisible excludes nothing, the invisible that excludes nothing is the infinite – the soul of India is the infinite.”
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| - AUM - The greatest symbol of Sanatana Dharma |
“India saw this clearly
and turned her face to that which has no boundary or whatever.” “India
anchored her soul in the infinite seeing the things of the world as masks of
the infinite assumes – there can be no end to these masks, of course. If they
express a true infinity.” And It is here that India’s mind boggling variety
links up to her infinite soul.”
“India includes so much because her soul being
infinite excludes nothing.” It goes without saying that the universe that India
saw emerging from the infinite was stupendous.”
While the West was still
thinking, perhaps, of 6,000 years old universe – India was already envisioning
ages and eons and galaxies as numerous as the sands of the River Ganga. The
Universe so vast that modern astronomy slips into its folds without a ripple.”
***
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| Rudyard Kipling(1865-1936) |
A writer who spent his earliest years blissfully happy in an India full of exotic sights and sounds.
He said this to Fundamental Christian Missionaries:
"Now it is not good for the Christian's health
to hustle the Hindu brown for the Christian riles and the Hindu smiles and
weareth the Christian down ; and the end of the fight is a tombstone while with
the name of the late deceased and the epitaph drear , "A fool lies here
who tried to hustle the east".
***
William Macintosh wrote: "All history points to India as the mother of science and art,"
"This country was anciently so renowned for knowledge and wisdom that the philosophers of Greece did not disdain to travel thither for their improvement."
***
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| Albert Einstein - (1879-1955) |
ALBERT EINSTEIN: The renowned Physicist. Nobel Laureate.
In 1905 after he published his 'theory of Relativity', he declared: "When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous."
***
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| Pierre Sonnerat(1748 - 1814) |
"Ancient India gave
to to the world its religions and philosophies: Egypt and Greece owe India
their wisdom and it is known that Pythagoras went to India to study under
Brahmins, who were the most enlightened of human beings."
Pierre Sonnerat's engravings of
Gods of India from his book - Journey to the Indies Eastern and China. "Egypt and Greece owe India
their wisdom and it is known that Pythagoras went to India to study under
Brahmins, who were the most enlightened of human beings."
***
While he believed in Christianity, he was attracted to the Hindu concepts of the non-duality of God (Advaitism-अद्वैत), as interpreted by Sankara (Adi Shankaracharya -आदि शंकराचार्य), and the transmigration of the human soul. The later theory he found more rational than the Christian doctrine of punishment and eternity of pain. Writing to his close friend, Earl Spencer, in 1787, he said: "I am no Hindu, but I hold the doctrine of the Hindus concerning a future state to be incomparably more rational, more pious, and more likely to deter men from vice, than the horrid opinions, inculcated on punishments without end"
He further wrote about the Hindus: "...they are a
people with a fertile and inventive genius, who in some early age...were
splendid in arts and arms, happy in government; wise in legislation, and
eminent in various knowledge..."
"I am in love with the gopis," he wrote to Wilkins in 1784, "charmed with Krishna, an enthusiastic admirer of Rama and a devout adorer of
Brahma. Yudhisthir, Arjuna, Bhima and other warriors of the Mahabharata appear
greater in my eyes than Agamemnon, Ajax, and Achilles appeared when I first
read the Iliad."
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| PEACE (on Buddha's face) The essence and aim of Sanatana Dharma |
"To read the
Vedanta, or the many fine compositions in illustration of it, without believing
that Pythagoras and Plato derived their sublime theories from the same fountain
with the sages of India." He also gave arguments to show that "a
group of Egyptian priests had settled down in India and borrowed much from
it."
Equally interesting are his poems. A Hymn to Narayana, in which he describes
the Hindu theory of creation. A Hymn to Lakshmi and A Hymn to Ganga are equally
fine.
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| Shiva (Mahadeva) महादेव Also called The Lord of the Devas (Demi-Gods) |
A Hymn to Ganga
"How sweetly Ganga smiles,
and glides,
Luxuriant o'er her broad autumnal bed!
Her waves perpetual verdure spread;
Whilst health and plenty deck her golden sides."
"The analogies between Greek and Pythagorean
philosophy and the Sankhya school are very obvious."
Jones' firm belief in the Vedas is challenging and at the same time illuminating: "I can venture to affirm, without meaning to pluck a leaf from the never-fading laurels of our immortal Newton, that the whole of his theology, and part of his philosophy, may be found in the Vedas".
"The six philosophical schools, whose principles are explained in the Darsana Sastra, comprise all the metaphysics of the old Academy, the Stoa, the Lyceum; nor is it possible to read the Vedanta, or the many fine compositions in illustration of it, without believing that Pythagoras and Plato derived their sublime theories from the same fountain with the Sages of India."
"We are told by the Greek writers that the Indians were the wisest of nations, and in moral wisdom, they were certainly eminent."
Of Sankara's (Shankaracharya's) commentary upon the Vedanta, Sir
Jones says that "it is not possible to speak with too much applause of so
excellent a work."
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| The Ganga Ghats at Varanasi वाराणसी (Kashi/Benaras) (कशी/बनारस) It is called the city of God Shiva |
He added: "The system is built on the purest devotion."
"Human life would
not be sufficient to make oneself acquainted with any considerable part of
Hindu literature."
I hope you like the quotes on Scriptures of Sanatana Dharma. I will be adding some more at a later stage.
Note: While I use the quotes from the intellectuals in these postings, there are some comments made on other religions. I do not intend to make any criticism or speak dis-respectfully about other religions. I have utmost respect for all religions, sincerely.
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| THE DIYAs दिये (LAMPS) These represent the various aspects of the virtues of Sanatana Dharma [Knowledge, Tranquility, Peace, Light, Wisdom] |
I hope you like the quotes on Scriptures of Sanatana Dharma. I will be adding some more at a later stage.
Note: While I use the quotes from the intellectuals in these postings, there are some comments made on other religions. I do not intend to make any criticism or speak dis-respectfully about other religions. I have utmost respect for all religions, sincerely.
Siddharth S. Sinha
सिद्धार्थ स सिन्हा
ssselan@yahoo.in
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