Abstract
IT must be confessed that the Englishman at home takes little interest, other than political, in his Indian Empire. The fact has been noticed by the Hindus themselves. We do not compare favourably with the Dutch, for example, who are keenly interested in every aspect of their possessions in the East. Yet the scientific importance of India (a big slice of the globe comes under the name) is in many ways unique, and to the sympathetic and imaginative mind its varied yet homogeneous population supplies an inexhaustible fund of suggestion for the study of man. Much has been done, sporadically, since the days of Sir William Jones, but scientific research in India has never been adequately organised. The antiquities and languages of India have received comprehensive attention, but the most remarkable religion of the world has depths still unfathomed; the institutions and social habits of the people are not yet fully understood; important documents, like the Tantras, still remain untranslated, though the task is a simple one, and its results would be of great value. Meanwhile the Hindus are the people who, thousands of years ago, said—as some think—the last word on philosophy. It is curious to note how frequently the European thinker ends his course in some system long ago familiar to the Hindu. “The immobility of the East,” so strangely contrasting with our feverish civilisation, may perhaps contain the solution of a problem which still perplexes us—how to live.
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CRAWLEY, A. Research in India 1 . Nature 75, 41 (1906). https://doi.org/10.1038/075041a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/075041a0