Unmasking AIT

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Sep 1 2006, 10:27 AM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Sep 1 2006, 10:27 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Check page 191
West started learning Sanskrit in 18th century.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Mudyji

Thats one nasty spin. Maybe the guy is philologist himself, I dont know. Jones+Schlegel both were working very much in biblical framework. The spin of the day then seemed like -> church is bad, popes are bad BUT xtianity is da in-thing. jones' spin on the whole thing was -> hey those yindoos are not japhetic but are hametic or whatever. Most of his 'findings' were later found untenable except for the aryan thing. There was just too much involved to let this one just go.

Muller saheb too pulled a fast one but before that we should list what were the prevailing strands of thoughts which would have affected 'scholars' at that time.

1. catholic v/s protestant
2. 'enlightenment' and its aftermath.
3. xlations coming in from heathen literature.
4. what the heck -> these dark yindoos got culture ???
5. bible bible bible.

[Guest]

Rajesh, the bibilical thingie started with W. Jones. Prior to that, including Schelgel who by the way was an mutinous christian, believed everything (well knowledge, people etc) in Europe came from India/Hindus (esp. Northwest)

I will find references later to the above.

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->There is a very clear 'protestant-catholic' struggle amongst the early Indologists (Orientalists as they called themselves). 

There were two clear camps of Indologists of 18th century. First - Portugese and Dutch, later joined by Germans, insisted that Bible is historically right to the last single word of it; that Hebrew is the original language of all humans;<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Bodhi,
Do we have to bring the christian struggle into the debate? We can ignore them
if we can help it.

The language debate in Europe is very important and Hebrew losing its dominance is a critical event in the creation of AIT.

Since they could not decide clearly on the langauage origin this theory has been proposed and is still being debated.

What would the Jewish intellectuals do if they found that during that period that this debate would undermine their hold on the language and their hold on the destiny of the european people.

They would go about by creating an alternative theory which they could still control worldwide with scholarship and research for several decades and even many centuries.

[Guest]

Well, from Edwin Bryant's book..In <b>Quest of the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate</b>

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>India, the Cradle of Civilization </b>

Other scholars, however, upon learning of these linguistic (and therefore racial) connections of the distant Indic languages, felt that radical alternatives to the Armenian point of origin had now gained legitimacy. India, in particular, was a popular candidate, especially among segments of the intelligentsia in the late eighteenth century and first half of the nineteenth century, and especially (but not exclusively) on the Continent. As it had done in classical times, India again captured the imagination of Romantic Europe. <b>The astronomer Bailly, the first mayor of Paris, was very influential in popularizing Indian wisdom. In 1777, after some deliberation, he situated the earliest humans on the banks of the Ganges</b>. Even before Jones's announcement, Bailly stated that “the Brahmans are the teachers of Pythagoras, the instructors of Greece and through her of the whole of Europe” (51). Voltaire voiced his agreement: “In short, Sir, I am convinced that everything—astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc.—comes to us from the banks of the Ganges” (Bailly 1777, 4).

The French naturalist and traveler Pierre de Sonnerat (1782) also believed all knowledge came from India, which he considered the cradle of the human race. In 1807, the well-known metaphysician Schelling could wonder “what is Europe really but a sterile trunk which owes everything to Oriental grafts?” (Poliakov 1971, 11).

<b>A year later, the influential Friedrich von Schlegel argued that “the Northwest of India must be considered the central point from which all of these nations had their origin” (505). </b>In 1845, Eichhoff was adamant that “all Europeans come from the Orient. This truth, which is confirmed by the evidence of physiology and linguistics, no longer needs special proof” (12). Even as late as 1855, Lord A. Curzon, the governor-general of India and eventual chancellor of Oxford, was still convinced that “the race of India branched out and multiplied into that of the great Indo-European family.....
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Ah, this is new.....Another Schlegel, I was getting confused with... Hmm..

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In 1842, <b>A. W. von Schlegel, in contrast to his brother Frederik</b>, claimed that “it is completely unlikely that the migrations which had peopled such a large part of the globe would have begun at its southern extremity and would have continually directed themselves from there towards the northeast.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-k.ram+Sep 3 2006, 12:21 PM-->QUOTE(k.ram @ Sep 3 2006, 12:21 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Ah, this is new.....Another Schlegel, I was getting confused with... Hmm..
[right][snapback]56721[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Yes Ram, there are two of them. Both brothers. I mentioned it in post # 48

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"Schlegel" is a whole family of them. Adolphus Schlegel, had many sons - of interest to us are "Augustus William Schlegel" born 1769, and "Frederich Von Schlegel" born 1772. The father Schlegel was a priest in Lutherian Church in England. The son Schlegels were early Indologists. These folks were Germans but were hired by East India Company.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

These folks were early Germans hired by East India Company. We need to discover more here - Why? Why would EIC hire German historians who are working in German and Dutch universities, and would continue to work there...

After these fellows there is a continuous pouring of German Indologists (some associated with East India Company)...and they will contibute mightily to AIT...

[Guest]

One hint, not sure whether valid, King of England was German, and there were many other interconnections between German and British politics...

Or maybe genuine interest in German academicians towards East, as a result of the rise of German nationalism sentiment. They liked to see themselves different from Romans. (like Nietze's path breaking "Thus Spoke Zaruthastra", many other works of contemporary Germans, Austrians, Hungarians)

[Guest]

Bodhi, Yes, I missed that post. Thanks.

In the mean time, from the same Edwin Bryant's book...


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Biblical Origins </b>

Scholars and thinkers of the late eighteenth century, enthusiastically pushing forward the scientific and intellectual frontiers that had become accessible in post-Enlightenment Europe, found themselves grappling with the historicity of Old Testament chronology. The discovery, through expanding European colonies, of other cultures claiming pedigrees of vast antiquity; developments in linguistics; and the proliferation of “hard” archaeological evidence provoked a drastic reevaluation of biblical narrative in matters of human origins. Features such as the monogenic descent from Adam, the evolution of all human language from the monolingual descendants of Noah, and the brief period that seemed to be allotted to the dispersion of the human race after the Flood became the subjects of intense debates. As the first pioneering British scholars in India began to discover Sanskrit texts, the promise of hitherto unknown historical information becoming revealed to Europeans became the cause of both great anticipation and epistemological anxiety.

<b>Sir William Jones, the first Indologist to attempt a serious synchronization of biblical and Puranic chronology,</b> exemplifies the tensions of his time. His predecessors, British scholars John Holwell, Nathaniel Halhed, and Alexander Dow—all associated in various capacities with the British East India Trading Company—had relayed back to an eager Europe gleanings from Puranic sources that described an immense antiquity for the human race. 1 <b>These provided the ranks of disaffected Christians, such as the vociferous Voltaire, with valuable materials with which to attempt to shake off the constraints of Judeo-Christian chronology and to refute Jewish or Christian claims to exclusive mediation between man and Providence</b>. Holwell, for one, <b>believed that the Hindu texts contained a higher revelation than the Christian ones, that they predated the Flood, and that “the mythology, as well as the cosmogony of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, were borrowed from the doctrines of the Brahmins” </b>(Marshall 1970, 46). Halhed, too, seemed to take the vast periods of time assigned to the four yugas quite seriously, since “human reason … can no more reconcile to itself the idea of Patriarchal … longevity” of a few thousand years for the entire span of the human race (Marshall, 1931, 159). Dow was instrumental in presenting Europe with a deistic image of India whose primitive truths owed nothing to either Jews or Christians. <b>Such challenges stirred up considerable controversy in Europe, fueled by intellectuals such as Voltaire adopting such material in endeavors to undermine biblical historicity. </b>

Naturally, such drastic innovations were bitterly opposed by other segments of the intelligentsia. For well over a millennium, much of Europe had accepted the Old Testament as an infallible testament documenting the history of the human race. <b>Thomas Maurice, for example, complained bitterly in 1812 about “the daring assumptions of certain skeptical French philosophers with respect to the Age of the World … arguments principally founded on the high assumptions of the Brahmins … [which] have a direct tendency to overturn the Mosaic system, and, with it, Christianity.” </b>Such scholars were greatly relieved by “the fortunate arrival of … the various dissertations, on the subject, of Sir William Jones” (22–23). Jones was just as concerned about the fact that “some intelligent and virtuous persons are inclined to doubt the authenticity of the accounts delivered by Moses.” In his estimation, too, “either the first eleven chapters of Genesis … are true, or the whole fabrick of our national religion is false, a conclusion which none of us, I trust, would wish to be drawn” (Jones 1788, 225).

Eager to settle the matter, <b>Jones undertook the responsibility of unraveling Indian chronology for the benefit and appeasement of his disconcerted colleagues</b>: “I propose to lay before you a concise history of Indian chronology extracted from Sanskrit books, attached to no system, and as much disposed to reject Mosaick history, if it be proved erroneous, as to believe it, if it be confirmed by sound reason from indubitable evidence” (Jones 1790a, 111). Despite such assurances, Jones's own predispositions on this matter were revealed in several earlier written statements: “I … am obliged of course to believe the sanctity of the venerable books [of Genesis]” (1788, 225); Jones (1790) <b>concluded his researches by claiming to have “traced the foundation of the Indian empire above three thousand eight hundred years from now” (145), that is to say, safely within the confines of Bishop Usher's creation date of 4004 B.C.E. and, more important, within the parameters of the Great Flood,</b> which Jones considered to have occurred in 2350 B.C.E. Such undertakings afford us a glimpse of some of the tensions that many European scholars were facing in their encounter with India at the end of the eighteenth century; the influence of the times clearly weighed heavily. However, Jones's compromise with the biblical narrative did make the new Orientalism safe for Anglicans: “Jones in effect showed that Sanskrit literature was not an enemy but an ally of the Bible, supplying independent corroboration of the Bible's version of history” (Trautmann, 1997, 74). Jones's chronological researches did manage to calm the waters somewhat and “effectively guaranteed that the new admiration for Hinduism would reinforce Christianity and would not work for its overthrow” (74). <b>Trautmann notes that, for the most part, up until the early part of the nineteenth century, British Indomania was excited about the discovery of Hinduism for several reasons: it provided independent confirmation of the Bible; its religion contained the primitive truth of natural religion still in practice, a unitary truth from which the forms of paganism of Rome and Greece were perverted offshoots</b>; and its arts and cultures were connected to Egypt's (64).
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+Sep 3 2006, 10:09 PM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ Sep 3 2006, 10:09 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->One hint, not sure whether valid, King of England was German, and there were many other interconnections between German and British politics...

Or maybe genuine interest in German academicians towards East, as a result of the rise of German nationalism sentiment.  They liked to see themselves different from Romans.  (like Nietze's path breaking "Thus Spoke Zaruthastra", many other works of contemporary Germans, Austrians, Hungarians)
[right][snapback]56724[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

A guess...

After W.Jones' suggestion that Sanskrit and the classical European tongues had a common origin in an <b>Indo-Germanic</b> language {Which later became Indo-European}, it was very well received, and many chairs of Indology were set up across nineteenth-century Germany. In Britain, which ruled India, had very few (not sure how mnay though).

I believe even now there are chairs in Germany that combine Indology and <b>Indo-Germanic</b> languages - <i>In our day and age, Harvard Donkeys and PFA inventor, with FOSA Pakis, continue this bogus racist tradition.</i> <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Why Germany? It is the German obsession with the myth of the Aryan race, German scholars embarked on the search for the oldest forms of religion and of language, which would be found among aryans - The aryans of India of a "stagnated" society, and the reasons for this "stagnation" and explanations and answers were provided by "German Romanticism" - or something like that...... Heck, even David duke talks about "stagnation" even today. Harvard Donkey has the same ideas too, but puts a "prefessional acadamic" spin, while proclaiming the same.

[acharya]

However, Jones's compromise with the biblical narrative did make the new Orientalism safe for Anglicans: “Jones in effect showed that Sanskrit literature was not an enemy but an ally of the Bible, supplying independent corroboration of the Bible's version of history” (Trautmann, 1997, 74). Jones's chronological researches did manage to calm the waters somewhat and “effectively guaranteed that the new admiration for Hinduism would reinforce Christianity and would not work for its overthrow”


They had to make it non threatening before scholars could spend time and research into Indian studies and finance these activities.

[Bharatvarsh]

hehe evidently Indians became smart because of Caucasian gene inflow (try and remember which Witzel supporter said something similar):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->July 6, 2006
The Death of Western Engineering
Filed under: Civil Rights— @ 12:49 am

by Charles Coughlin

Pat Buchanan wrote a book called the “Death of the West” describing the submergence of White civilization under a flood of Third World immigration. One of the greatest traits of Western civilization is its ability to make great inventions and triumphs of engineering. Most of America’s prosperity is due to a long line of inventors. Many Oriental societies have copied these inventions and more or less kept pace with the West.

Some fans of Asian immigrants hail their math skills and see them as bolstering American engineering. Nothing could be further from the truth. “Reasonably competent” engineers and scientists do not make a nation prosperous. Only brilliant, creative inventors can do that.

Unless these Asians are evolving to have more creativity, they will not keep America great. Most of the Indians who are passably good at math have noticeably “mixed” features showing some White admixture possibly stemming from various Aryan invasions of their homeland dating back to prehistory, Alexander the Great and most recently the British Empire.

The east Asians have good memories and some math skills, but very little creativity. Look at the Japanese in World War Two. While the Germans and Americans were making more advanced fighter planes as the war progressed such as the P51, FW190 and Me262, the Japanese failed miserably to create equally good fighters (except for a few planes built from German plans).

If you look at Nobel Prize winners, about 95 percent of them are of White ancestry. The great inventors in recent history such as William Shockley or Burt Rutan are White. Bill Gates may be nerdy and ultra-liberal, but he’s another White who’s made a great new industry out of nothing.

The “reasonably competent” Indians and Asians are the darling of industry because they work for less. That causes more Whites to drop out of engineering, and even more Indians and Asians (of slightly less competence than the preceding batch) are brought in. A negative feedback loop is then started that will drive out Whites from engineering and keep the floodgate open for Orientals willing to work for less and less. Eventually the whole engineering profession will be taken over by non-Whites. This is a disaster of the greatest magnitude and far more damaging to the US than even the Mexican invasion.

http://www.whitecivilrights.com/the-death-...eering_502.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->evidently Indians became smart because of Caucasian gene inflow (try and remember which Witzel supporter said something similar):
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Stanley Wolpert - if I'm not mistaken. His books are banned in India by Cong govt since he called Jawaharlal Nehru a homosexual.

[Guest]

Writing between 1793-1796, A H L Heeren, Professor of History in the University of Goettingen, says :

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The general opinion of ancient as well as of modern times is unanimous in considering the <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Hindus as one of the earliest, if not in fact the oldest, civilized nation in the world</span>.  The critical enquirer however has an undoubted right to demand upon what foundation this universal opinion of the high antiquity of the Hindus rests; and whether the bare assertion of the natives themselves be equivalent to an absolute verification of the fact?  Or, have not we also good reasons for being incredulous in an equal ratio to their own exaggerated accounts of their antiquity, particularly as it appears more and more evident that India is the last place to look to for any thing like authentic systems of chronology?  To this question however we shall only be able to furnish a decisive answer in the sequel of our enquiry.

In the mean time it will merely be necessary at the outset to define with somewhat more precision the rather vague acceptation of the words 'high antiquity.'  Allowing as we do to Hindus to be a most ancient people, we are not therefore obliged to appeal to their chronlogical series of years reckoned by the million, nor indeed with several English writers, need we go so far back even as the deluge, at which period acording to their calculations, the fourth age of the Hindus, the age of corruption, began. 

Under the title of 'high antiquity' we generally comprehend that space of time <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>which extends to the tenth century before the Christian era.  The historic records of no other people, if we except the Jews, reaches beyond this point.</span>  All that goes further back is concealed beneath the clock of tradition and hieroglaphics.

<span style='color:red'>Whether the civilization of India reaches back to one thousand years before the Christian era, as is pretty certain, or even to two, which is not improbable, can never be a question altogether devoid of interest.</span>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

So, this idea has already settled in:
- Hindus are very old people. But when deciding the time frame,
- 'except the jews' - should not affect the antiqueity of Jews as the original people.
- 'Christian Era' and what Bible has said.

About AHL Heeren
Historical researches into the politics, intercourse, and trade of the principal nations of antiquity

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-k.ram+Sep 4 2006, 06:50 AM-->QUOTE(k.ram @ Sep 4 2006, 06:50 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->
After W.Jones' suggestion that Sanskrit and the classical European tongues had a common origin in an <b>Indo-Germanic</b> language {Which later became Indo-European}, it was very well received, and many chairs of Indology were set up across nineteenth-century Germany. In Britain, which ruled India, had very few (not sure how mnay though).

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Thats why we need to psychoanalyze the 'scholars' from that time. Many things seem to have affected the nuts in vogue at the time. One nut gets overawed with yindoo lit and spins it so bible doesnt loose its primacy as the euro grand narrative. Another nut finds all these hegelian/communist thing too much to digest and wants to manufacture identity that can withstand such disturbing trends. Another hired gun says -> yeah these guys are cool and everything but they have got corrupted bible with them, so lets us euros spread word of god or something.

These nuts are still with us but I think we have not analyzed them properly. Our knowledge stops with muller when there are tonnes of other nutty bible-thumpers in these fields.

The more I read about it the more I find the present-day desi-AIT-believers amusing. I just found something very amusing --> one of the DalitVoice hero VT Rajshekhar (sp?) is pretty anti-semitic and yet this fellow claims to be a 'dalit' who per AIT must be the conquered one by the aryans.. Similarly the commies behavior is pretty amusing when you consider that the major AIT proponents have been anti-commie to the core..

Weird world, but lets address those when we get there, we still need to dig into late 18th early 19th century.

[ramana]

In post #50 I wrote:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The object of the picture is to show that <b>there was a progression of ideas from thinking India is the mother of all civilization(Voltarie, Schelgel granted could be later, mid 18th cent) to India is the recieving end of all the invader dregs(Max Mueller, mid 19 cent.) and thus has no originality. All this in 100 years. The big question should be why?</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Folks find the answer to this and you would unravel the AIT. Also lets not make this thread the repository for drivel like the David Duke follower's ideas.

One more question is when they talk of stagnation what to they mean? Are we seeing the begining of "modernity' in their laments? In other words their disenchantment with India is due to their feeling of being the "other" and hence no chance of breaking/shaking off the J-C mileu?

We see a reapeat of this fascination for India among the Flower generation of the Baby Boomers in the 1960s (About 200 year later from original encounter with Sanskrit or 100 years after the AIT) and again disenchantment. So what is it that they find in Indian culture that turns them off? Why this fascination and the subsequent rejection?


Into this mix we need to throw in Hegel and his work "Philosophy of History". He is the one who says Indians dont have a sense of "History". I have the feeling that Hegel is the precursor to the AIT. While Max Mueller gave it form.

[ramana]

Web page of Dr Bal Ram Singh Director of Center for Indic Studies at UMAss, Dartmouth. Has links to his papers

Dr Bal Ram Singh

Incidentally UMass, Dartmouth held the recent AIT conference in June 06.

BTW, the Center is developing a text book on Indina civilization for College level course.

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Sep 5 2006, 02:30 AM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Sep 5 2006, 02:30 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->


Into this mix we need to throw in Hegel and his work "Philosophy of History". He is the one who says Indians dont have a sense of "History". I have the feeling that Hegel is the precursor to the AIT. While Max Mueller gave it form.
[right][snapback]56836[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

The entire time period of this research and awareness until Max Muller is more than 100 years.

When the sanskrit language was discovered in early 1700s it took them more than 100 years for them to come to terms with an alternate history from their own world view.

These Indian histories were pre historic for them and too complicated and Hegel makes a statement that Indians dont have any history. The combined work of all the orientalists ( around 50 of them from 1700) led them to get an idea of how to keep the Indian history isolated from the western history including Greek and Roman.

They had to maintain the integrity of Biblical history and timeline and also give a credible explanation for the origin of the European languages. This was very important for them for making sure that the history of Europe does not collapse under the new research.

[ramana]

Steve Knapp Death of Aryan Invasion theory

[Guest]

<span style='color:red'>Aryan the master race</span>
Not any German, but a French guy - Arthur de Gobineau (1816 to 1882) - is credited with creation of "Aryans the master race theory".

In his book "Inequality of the Human Races" which he wrote between 1853 and 1855, he tried to prove that whites are superior to others, and within whites too the Aryans are best stock.

Later on this book became the foundation stone of Aryan Nationalism in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, as well as would apparently inspired many European Indologists in shaping up AIT.

About Arthur de Gobineau
Inequality of the Human Races

[Guest]

http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/cmc/mhr/122mhr03.pdf

Interesting paper from Olender. Has anybody read Olender ?

[Guest]

xposting Dhu's post from other thread.

http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?roo...5&filetype=html

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Cntemporary research that addresses the important period of the early 19th century in India generally takes the controversy between Anglicists and Orientalists as a useful explanatory framework [Cohn 1988, Kejariwal 1988, Dirks 2001]. Convinced that the Indian society was saturated by heathendom, Anglicists considered India to be corrupt. They believed that its culture was degenerate and its population irrational, retarded, superstitious and morally depraved. The Orientalists, on the other hand, genuinely sought to understand the foreign culture. Surely, they wanted to bring reform. But they were certain that a transformation could only be successful if it resonated with the mores of the natives. Hence, they studied the Indian culture, learned its local languages, collected and preserved what belonged to its cultural inheritance, and discovered a grand past that presented an India excelling in the political, social, religious and intellectual domains.

The differences between the two factions are generally considered significant and important [cf Kopf 1969, 1991, Frykenberg 1979, Jones 1976]. However, we would like to highlight that they turn out to be superficial when it comes to the assessment of the fundamental structure of the Indian society. Unerringly, both identified brahmins as the ‘priests’. They both were convinced that these ‘priests’ had a negative influence on religion and society. Brahmins were held responsible for the creation and sanctification of the caste system, which brought social development to a halt. They accepted as true that this system consisted of a rigid social compartmentalisation and that it was created to preserve religious and social privileges of the brahmin caste. They were convinced that the brahmins used their religious authority to dominate those in civil power which explained why the system of hierarchical castes was not contested by those in power as well, etc.

If there were differences between Orientalists and Anglicists in this regard, they were very shallow. Anglicists found Indian culture and society intrinsically corrupt from the very beginning. Orientalists, however, saw India’s culture as being based on sound principles which steadily degenerated. But the cause of corruption, however, was in both cases the same, i e, ‘brahmanism’.

In this article, we propose that both the idea of religious degeneration and the role played by the priests in this process are derived from deep seated Christian conceptions of religion. On the one hand, the biblical story of a god-given religion that was subsequently corrupted through the course of time was the general framework that structured the history of Christianity and of all the other so-called religions. On the other hand, because Christianity assigned a primary role to the clergy, religion was an affair of the priests only. Consequently, the mechanism of degeneration had to be found in the priesthood: priests became the instruments of the devil and began to transform the original god-given religion. This understanding of religion, we would like to suggest, structured the European quest for the ‘religious’ elsewhere. Brahmins were identified as ‘priests’, who created ‘brahmanism’, which was imposed upon Indian society. One of the main elements of this sacerdotal religion that preserved their privileges was the caste system. This conception, we would further like to emphasise, became more poignant, more structured and more coherent against the background of the reformation and the Protestant critiques of the Roman-Catholic church.

If this suggestion is convincing, the prevalence of Europe’s conceptualisation in the modern Indian intellectual’s reflection on his own society is nothing but remarkable. Even though there existed a long tradition of criticism of brahmins and caste in India itself, Rammohun Roy, for example, while criticising contemporary brahmanism vigorously, merely echoed the assessment of the British. Similarly, Babasaheb Ambedkar did the same a century later when he took up its sacerdotal invention of caste along familiar lines. By doing so, both accepted exactly that which Orientalists and Anglicists shared: they ended up criticising ‘brahmins’ as ‘priests’ and ‘brahmanism’ as a deprived ‘religion of the priests’.

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->