Anoop Verma's Diary: Itihasa & Darshana: Ram Mohan Roy’s View of Sanskrit Education

Friday, 16 December 2022

Ram Mohan Roy’s View of Sanskrit Education

Stamp Dedicated to the Sanskrit College

(Issued in 1999)

In 1823, work began in Calcutta to build a new Sanskrit college. Ram Mohan Roy was opposed to this college because he was convinced that education in Sanskrit had no practical use. He felt that Anglicization was the best option for India. He wrote, in his perfect English, a letter to William Amherst, the Governor-General of India from 1823 to 1828, to denounce the project for building a Sanskrit college in Calcutta.

Here’s an excerpt from Roy’s letter:

“We find that the government is establishing a Sanskrit school under Hindu pandits to impart such knowledge as is already current in India. This seminary… can only be expected to load the minds of youth with grammatical niceties and metaphysical distinctions of little or no practical use to the possessors or to society. The pupils will acquire what was known two thousand years ago with the addition of vain and empty subtleties…” (Sources of Indian Tradition, by Theodore De Barry; Page 593)

Roy goes on to say that he was opposed to the Sanskrit college because “the Sanskrit system of education would be something best calculated to keep this country in darkness…” (Page 595)

In the middle part of his lengthy letter, Roy (who was himself educated in a Sanskrit institution in Banaras) makes disdainful comments on several aspects of ancient Sanskrit texts and the system of Sanskrit based education. But Roy’s analysis of Sanskrit culture was outrageously incorrect—those who are acquainted with ancient Indian texts would recognize these aspects as the greatest achievements of ancient Sanskrit literature, philosophy, linguistics, and political theory.

Most Indians prefer to blame British intellectuals like Thomas Macaulay and James Mill for creating a negative opinion in India and Europe about Sanskrit literature and Hindu culture, which persists till this day, and promoting the Anglicization of India’s education. They ignore the role played by prominent Hindu intellectuals like Roy.

What Roy’s letter to William Amherst proves is that the educated class of Hindus have mostly been people with amnesia. Even intellectuals like Roy did not really possess a sense of India’s history, or even interest in it. They were not aware of the fact that the Indian subcontinent was one of the earliest centers of human civilization. They were not aware of the achievements of Sanskrit literature, philosophy, linguistics, and political theory.

Despite Roy’s opposition, the Sanskrit College was founded on 1 January 1824, and the college rose to prominence during the principalship of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in 1851.

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Nirad C. Chaudhuri

“In the south the temples have survived, and in the north they have not. Over seven centuries from the eleventh to the end of the seventeenth all the great cities of northern India dating from Hindu times were sacked by the Muslim invaders and conquerors of India. All the temples there and in all other centres of Hinduism were systematically destroyed. None were left standing at Ujjain, Ajmere, Delhi, Mathura, Brindaban, Kanauj, Prayag, or Benares—which were the centres of the political, cultural, and religious life of the Hindus. In most of these places mosques were built on the sites of the temples, and in some with pillars taken from them. This religious vandalism also worked its fury on the Buddhist centres. Moreover, it was not simply that the great temples in the cities were destroyed; so were the village temples. For most of the period of Muslim rule, there was a ban on building new temples and rebuilding the old in the regions the Muslims controlled.” ~ Nirad C. Chaudhuri

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“The existence of man in political society is historical existence; and a theory of politics, if it penetrates to principles, must at the same time be a theory of history.” ~ Eric Voegelin

“Social evils cannot be reformed by legislation; defects of government machinery cannot be repaired by changes in the constitution; differences of opinion cannot be settled by compromise.” ~ Eric Voegelin

"There is no such thing as a right to be stupid; there is no such thing as a right to be illiterate; there is no such thing as a right to be incompetent.” ~ Eric Voegelin

"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim." ~ George Santayana

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"In National Socialist and related documents we are still further below the level on which rational argument is possible than in the case of Hegel and Marx. In order to deal with rhetoric of this type, one must first develop a philosophy of language, going into the problems of symbolization on the basis of the philosophers’ experience of humanity and of the perversion of such symbols on the vulgarian level by people who are utterly unable to read a philosopher’s work.” ~ Eric Voegelin

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“The quest for the origin must take into account that the world of our experience is not a static structure but a process; and the speculation on the origin must project (in one symbolism or another) this experience into a process in the origin itself.” ~ Eric Voegelin

“The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye.” ~ Jacob Bronowski

“You can run agriculture for centuries by manual labor and oxcarts. But destroy the last of this country's industrial plant—and centuries of effort won't be able to rebuild it or to gather the economic strength to make a start.” ~ Ayn Rand

“Can you be a conservative and believe in God? Obviously. Can you be a conservative and not believe in God? This is an empirical essay, and so the answer is, as obviously, yes. Can you be a conservative and despise God and feel contempt for those who believe in him? I would say no.” ~ William F. Buckley Jr.

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“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.” ~ James Joyce