Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 4: Essays Chiefly on the Science of LanguageMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Religion
Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 4: Essays Chiefly on the Science of Language
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Comparative linguistics; Folklore; Literature -- History and criticism; Mythology; Religions
pedantry.
Colebrooke’s grammar, even in its unfinished state, will always be the
best introduction to a study of the native grammarians--a study
indispensable to every sound Sanskrit scholar. In accuracy of statement
it still holds the first place among European grammars, and it is only
to be regretted that the references to Pânini and other grammatical
authorities, which existed in Colebrooke’s manuscript, should have been
left out when it came to be printed. The modern school of Sanskrit
students has entirely reverted to Colebrooke’s views on the importance
of a study of the native grammarians. It is no longer considered
sufficient to know the correct forms of Sanskrit declension or
conjugation: if challenged, we must be prepared to substantiate their
correctness by giving chapter and verse from Pâṇini, the fountain-head
of Indian grammar. If Sir E. Colebrooke says that “Bopp also drew deeply
from the fountain-head of Indian grammar in his subsequent labors,” he
has been misinformed. Bopp may have changed his opinion that “the
student might arrive at a critical knowledge of Sanskrit by an attentive
study of Foster and Wilkins, without referring to native authorities;”
but he himself never went beyond, nor is there any evidence in his
published works that he himself tried to work his way through the
intricacies of Pâṇini.
In addition to his grammatical studies, Colebrooke was engaged in
several other subjects. He worked at the Supplement to the “Digest of
Laws,” which assumed very large proportions; he devoted some of his time
to the deciphering of ancient inscriptions, in the hope of finding some
fixed points in the history of India; he undertook to supply the
Oriental synonymes for Roxburgh’s “Flora Indica”--a most laborious task,
requiring a knowledge of botany as well as an intimate acquaintance with
Oriental languages. In 1804 and 1805, while preparing his classical
essay on the Vedas for the press, we find him approaching the study of
the religion of Buddha. In all these varied researches, it is most
interesting to observe the difference between him and all the other
contributors to the “Asiatic Researches” at that time. They were all
carried away by theories or enthusiasm; they were all betrayed into
assertions or conjectures which proved unfounded. Colebrooke alone, the
most hard-working and most comprehensive student, never allows one word
to escape his pen for which he has not his authority; and when he speaks
of the treatises of Sir W. Jones, Wilford, and others, he readily admits
that they contain curious matter, but as he expresses himself, “very
little conviction.” When speaking of his own work, as for instance, what
he had written on the Vedas, he says: “I imagine my treatise on the
Vedas will be thought curious; but, like the rest of my publications,
little interesting to the general reader.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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