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Germany had no material interests and responded spiritually to India. Friedrich Schlegel, hailed as “the inventor of the Oriental Renaissance,” wrote in 1803, “Everything, yes, everything without exception has its origin in India.” He proclaimed India with Greece and Germany, the most philosophical of nations. “If one considers,” he said, “the superior conception which is at the basis of the truly universal Indian culture and which, itself divine, knows how to embrace in its universality everything that is divine without distinction, then, what we in Europe call religion or what we used to call such, no longer seems to deserve that name. And one would like to advice everyone who wants to see religion, he should, just as one goes to Italy to study art, go to India for that purpose where he may be certain to find at least fragments for which he will surely look in vain in Europe.” Friedrich Schlegel’s The Language and Wisdom of the Indians was the first German contribution to Indology. Friedrich wrote, “May Indic studies find as many disciples and protectors as Germany and Italy saw spring up in such great numbers for Greek studies in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and may they be able to do as many things in as short a time. The Renaissance of antiquity promptly transformed and rejuvenated all the sciences; we might add that it rejuvenated and transformed the world. We could even say that the effects of Indic studies, if these enterprises were taken up and introduced into learned circles with the same energy today, would be no less great or far-reaching. (en) |
