Not necessarily, we say. The Vedas, Brahmanism, and along with these,
Sanskrit, were importations into what we now regard as India. They were
never indigenous to its soil. There was a time when the ancient nations
of the West included under the generic name of India many of the
countries of Asia now classified under other names. There was an Upper,
a Lower, and a Western India, even during the comparatively late period
of Alexander; and Persia (Iran) is called Western India in some ancient
classics. The countries now named Tibet, Mongolia, and Great Tartary
were considered by them as forming part of India. When we say,
therefore, that India has civilized the world, and was the Alma Mater of
the civilizations, arts, and sciences of all other nations (Babylonia,
and perhaps even Egypt, included), we mean archaic, pre-historic India,
India of the time when the great Gobi was a sea, and the lost "Atlantis"
formed part of an unbroken continent which began at the Himalayas and
ran down over Southern India, Ceylon, and Java, to far-away Tasmania.
Note III.
To ascertain such disputed questions, one has to look into and study
well the Chinese sacred and historical records--a people whose era
begins nearly 4,600 years back (2697 B.C.). A people so accurate, and
by whom some of the most important inventions of modern Europe and its
so much boasted modern science were anticipated--such as the compass,
gunpowder, porcelain, paper, printing, &c.--known and practiced
thousands of years before these were rediscovered by the Europeans,
ought to receive some trust for their records. And from Lao-tze down to
Hiouen-Thsang their literature is filled with allusions and references
to that island and the wisdom of the Himalayan adepts. In the "Catena
of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese," by the Rev. Samuel Beal, there
is a chapter "On the TIAN-TA'I School of Buddhism" (pp. 244-258) which
our opponents ought to read. Translating the rules of that most
celebrated and holy school and sect in China founded by Chin-che-K'hae,
called Che-chay (the Wise One), in the year 575 of our era, when coming
to the sentence which reads "That which relates to the one garment
(seamless) worn by the GREAT TEACHERS OF THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS, the school
of the Haimavatas" (p. 256), the European translator places after the
last sentence a sign of interrogation, as well he may. The statistics
of the school of the "Haimavatas," or of our Himalayan Brotherhood, are
not to be found in the general census records of India. Further, Mr.
Beal translates a rule relating to "the great professors of the higher
order who live in mountain depths remote from men," the Aranyakas, or
hermits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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