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XIV.-On Hindu Neology. By MAJOR SAMUEL R. I. OWEN, F.L.S., F.A.S.L., Assoc. King's College, London.

WE have already heard much of the Hindu as a Phallic worshipper, and as one bound down by superstition. I now wish to bring him to your notice as one, at least, making an effort and it appears to me a very grand effort to free himself from this mental slavery. Truly, "it is written," has been the weapon alike used in the east and west to stay science in her search after facts. It is some years since we in Europe began to throw off our chains. Astronomy was the early battlefield; and I wish to show you that the same strategic ground has now been taken up by the more advanced of the children of Brahma. In 1862, while residing at Benares, the seat of Hindu learning and orthodoxy, I was invited to attend the reading of a paper at a society got up by, and exclusively composed of, Hindus. This society could then show the names of sixty-four members on its list. I am personally acquainted with the President, Rajah Deo Narain Singh, who is a member of the GovernorGeneral's Council; also with the Vice-President, Secretary, and some of the other members of the society, and believe them to be men of position and education. For at least two years previously, there had appeared strong indications of unrest in the minds of some of the better educated Hindus of the place, and the present subject of communication may be considered a very good sample of the result. Before this time, 1862, it is highly probable that had a man been found to write such a paper, an audience would have been wanting to hear it read.

The author, Pundit Bapu Deva Sastri, a Maharatta, is Professor of Astronomy, Mathematics, and Sanscrit at the College of Benares. The object of the paper was to show the astronomical errors in their ancient scriptures, the Sastras, comparing what is there written with the established facts of

science, and calling especial attention to the precession of the equinoxes, not there taken into account; and the results that arise in the course of long periods by the computation of time, when this movement of the heavens is not attended to; and how the fasts and festivals have thus been made to fall at wrong seasons.

His ideas, in common with the rest of the Hindus, as to the day and night of the gods; how certain prayers and oblations are only appropriate to certain times, and the inconvenience and loss to believers that will result through offering up these when, as he says, it cannot benefit them; how he uses this argumentum ad hominem for the purpose of making his hearers sympathise with him in his wish to set them right on these vital points; and how he, as a worthy follower of Brahma, is most anxious to conciliate and please the gods, is well worthy of notice and comparison.

Every movement that is before the age meets with an active opposition, and so have the opinions of this worthy Pundit and his friends. If the Anthropological Society has to contend against this vis inertia, conceive what an amount of vis viva must have been exerted to set in motion such a ponderous mind as that of the Hindu,-a mind comparatively stationary for ages, and to which has clung abundance of stagnant vegetation.

In Europe, it has not only been sought to reconcile the text of Scripture with astronomy and geology, but to prove the truth of its inspiration on astronomical and geological grounds. The author of this paper, in like manner, often quotes the Sastras in his own vindication and support, and backing himself up by one text, he hopes to show the error in another, without doing so great a violence to the feelings and prejudices of those who are only beginning to feel the force of facts and inductive reasoning in antagonism to the authoritative "scriptum est." Few of the Hindu world can be much further advanced than this (I wish it to be understood that I am alluding to the Hindu Proper, not to the Bengalee).

He complains that the positions of the planets, as calculated by their own rules, are wrong. I have had sufficient testimony of the truth of this assertion. Aishwarj Singh, the

secretary of the society, brought to me his own nativity for examination. I found the position of Mercury to be out about four degrees, that of Venus about two degrees, and none of the places of the planets were exactly correct for the time given; this is a matter of some importance to men who place as implicit confidence in the influence of the heavens, as many of us do now in the curative powers of mercury, strychnine, or arsenic, and they adduce the same reason for their faith,-experience.

The author states that astronomical errors will cause their rights and ceremonies to become confused. The gods of the Hindus appear, from what the Pundit tells us, to expect different services during their day, from those to be performed in their honour during the night time,-each of these periods is of six months duration. But these astronomical errors have caused the services to be sadly misplaced; this the Brahminical sage looks upon as a serious matter. We ought to be able to sympathise with him. Conceive us to be placed in a similar dilemma; would not Easter offerings, tendered out of season, be unsavory things? Fancy that very ancient festival being thrown out of its proper season by an error of the astronomer Royal. It having been appropriated* both by the church and by the holiday keepers, each would be interested in such a matter; and so it is in India. The Doorga Poorja is not all prayer and fasting; though the pious Hindu may keep it in that way, the multitude have their melas, or fairs, as we used to have ours in the good old times.

Now this paper, as a paper on astronomy, may not be very interesting to us as anthropologists; but it shows us that the Hindus are diligently looking into what is written in their Sastras, and comparing that which is written with the facts now established by science. A high-caste man, in a good position, dares publicly to say "it is thus written; but this is not true, and we must correct our old scriptures." An influential audience is found to listen to him, and a society not unworthy of our respect publishes his paper. These things are worthy of our notice. If we remain unacquainted with this

*The Druidical ceremonies of Easter-Eoster or Astarte-date from before the year 1 A.D.

dawn of a new day in the east, we shall not know that the Hindu race, a race in which we, as Englishmen, especially take a great interest,-is advancing; at least, the first steps have been taken, in what you will no doubt agree with me in considering, the right direction.

I have said already perhaps more than sufficient to bring this subject to your notice. I will now lay before you the paper itself, in the form of an authentic translation. The secretary, who is son to the Vice-President, and other members of the society, are fair English scholars; it was not, therefore, necessary for an European to Anglicise the ideas when translating; this, I think, a matter of great importance, and adds much to the value of the paper in the form in which I present it to you. My own opinion is that the two races do not think in the same channel. If a thought could be conceived to have two ends by which it may be seized, the Hindu and European would almost invariably take hold of it by the opposite extremities. We all know how different would be the translation of the same work by men of opposite views on the subject treated of; how much more, then, is this to be guarded against when the translation has to be made by one who, perhaps, cannot think in the same train as the writer. I "perhaps"; for the different psychological powers of the brains of different races or species, if you will, is an open anthropological question, and the very question upon which I am now endeavouring to throw some additional light.

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The Sidereal and Tropical Systems. A Lecture by PANDIT BAPÚ DEVA SÁSTRÍ,

Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics, Sanskrit College, Benares. Delivered before the Benares Debating Club, on the Evening of the

14th October, 1862.

It is a great gratification, gentlemen, that you have expressed to me your desire to hear something on the subject of Astronomy, especially on the sidereal and tropical systems; and according to your wishes I have prepared a lecture on the subject, which I have the honour to read before you to-day. In this lecture you will meet, in some places, with some religious doctrines, for the mention of which I beg you to

excuse me, as I have brought them forward here to explain certain minute principles of the Hindu astronomy, and all of them aim at the demonstration of the truth.

It is well known that, of all the sciences extant in the world, this science is the most useful, the most astonishing, and the most excellent.

It is written* that "all other sciences are only for the amusement of the mind, and no wonderful result is derived from them, but the science of medicine and the science of astronomy are such that they produce marvellous effects in their every step." It is also said that "even those who, having abandoned the society of their family and of the world reside in the forest, have also need of the astronomer. Had there been no astronomer (in a country), hours, lunar days, the moon's mansions, the sun's northern and southern progresses, and the seasons would have been confused" (that is, nobody would have known them exactly and this would have caused a great embarrassment).

say this also that, the size and dimensions of the earth, all countries and islands situated on its surface, and their relative distances, are discovered only by the aid of this science. Merchants, for their traffic, visit countries and islands which are far distant from each other with the help of navigation which wholly depends upon this science, and thus people obtain such things and articles, produced in different parts of the globe, which are useful to them and conducive to their health and comfort. The merchants themselves are much profited; different nations contract mutual friendship, and their knowledge is thus increased by mutual aid. The savage inhabitants of distant islands have now learned how to read and write, and this is owing to the art of navigation.

If a man be asked where he lives, to what direction the door of his house lies, and so on, and if he cannot answer these questions, how ignorant will he be considered, and to what ridicule will he be subject. Thus if a man, residing on the surface of the earth, does not know even how large the earth

* The original paper containing the Sanskrit quotations used by the Pundit, has been deposited, by Major Owen, in the library of the Anthropological Society of London.

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