RAMMOHUN ROY
Letter to WilliamPitt, Lord Amherst
Sir,
I beg leave to send you the accompanying
address and shall feel obliged if you will have the goodness to lay it before
the Right Hon’ble the Governor-General in Council.
CALCUTTA I
have, etc.,
The
11th December 1823. RAMMOHUN
ROY
To
HIS
EXCELLENCY THE RIGHT HON’BLE WILLIAM PITT, LORD AMHERST.
My
Lord,
Humbly reluctant as the natives of India
are to obtrude upon the notice of Government the sentiments they entertain on
any public measure, there are circumstances when silence would be carrying this
respectful feeling to culpable excess. The present Rulers of India, coming from
a distance of many thousand miles to govern a people whose language,
literature, manners, customs, and ideas are almost entirely new and strange to
them, cannot easily become so intimately acquainted with their real
circumstances, as the natives of the country are themselves. We should
therefore be guilty of a gross dereliction of duty to ourselves, and afford our
Rulers just ground of complaint at our apathy, did we omit on occasions of
importance like the present to supply them with such accurate information as
might enable them to devise and adopt measure calculated to be beneficial to
the country, and thus second by our local knowledge and experience their declared
benevolent intentions for its improvement.
The
establishment of a new Sangscrit School in Calcutta evinces the laudable desire
of Government to improve the natives of India by education, - a blessing for
which they must ever be grateful; an every wellwisher of the human race must be
desirous that the efforts made to promote it should be guided by the most
enlightened principles, so that the stream of intelligence may flow into the
most useful channels.
When this Seminary of learning was
proposed, we understood that the Government in England had ordered a
considerable sum of money to be annually devoted to the instruction of its
Indian subjects. We were filled with sanguine hopes that this sum would be laid
out in employing European gentlemen of talents and education to instruct the
natives of India in Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Anatomy and
other useful sciences, which the Nations of Europe have carried to a degree of
perfection that has raised them above the inhabitants of other parts of the
world.
While we looked forward with pleasing hope
to the dawn of knowledge thus promised to the rising generation, our hearts
were filled with mingled feelings of delight and gratitude; we already offered
up thanks to Providence for inspiring the most generous and enlightened of the
Nations of the West with the glorious ambitions of planting in Asia the arts
and sciences of modern Europe.
We now find that the Government are
establishing a Sangscrit School under Hindoo Pundits to impart such knowledge
as is already current in India. This Seminary (similar in character to those
which existed in Europe before the time of Lord Bacon) can only be expected to
load the minds of youths with grammatical niceties and metaphysical
distinctions of little or no practicable use to the possessors or to society.
The pupils with there acquire what was known two thousand years ago, with the
addition of vain and empty subtleties since produced by speculative men, such
as is already commonly taught in all parts of India.
The Sangscrit language, so difficult that
almost a life time is necessary for its perfect acquisition, is well known to
have been for ages a lamentable check on the diffusion of knowledge; and the
learning concealed under this almost impervious veil is far from sufficient to
reward the labour of acquiring it. But if it were thought necessary to
perpetuate this language for the sake of the portion of the valuable
information it contains, this might be much more easily accomplished by other
means than the establishment of a new Sangscrit College; for there have been
always and are now numerous professors of Sangscrit in the different parts of
the country, engaged in teaching this language as well as the other branches of
literature which are to be object of new seminary. Therefore their more
diligent cultivation, if desirable, would be effectually promoted by holding
out permiums and granting certain allowances to those most eminent Professors,
who have already undertaken on their own account to teach them, and would by
such rewards be stimulated to still greater exertions.
From these considerations, as the sum set
apart for the instruction of the natives of India was intended by the
Government in England, for the improvement of its Indian subjects, I beg leave
to state, with due deference to your Lordship’s exalted situation, that if the
plan now adopted by followed, it will completely defeat the object proposed;
since no improvement can be expected from inducing youngmen to consume a dozen
of years of the most valuable period of their lives in acquiring the niceties
of the Byakurun or Sangscrit Grammar. for instance, in learning to discuss such
points as the follwoing : Khad signifying to eat, khaduti,
he or she or it eats. Query, whether does the word khaduti
taken as a whole, convey the meaning he, she, or it eats,
or are separate parts of this meaning conveyed by distinct portions of the
word? As if in the English language it were asked, how much meaning is there in
the eat,
how much in the s? and is the whole meaning of the word conveyed by those two
portions of it distinctly, or by them taken jointly?
Neither can much improvement arise from
such speculations as the following, which are the themes suggested by the
Vedant :- In what manner is soul absorbed into the deity? What relation does it
bear to the divine essence? Nor will youths be fitted to be better members of
society by the Vedantic doctrines, which teach them to believe that all visible
things have no real existence; that as father, brother, etc., have no actual
entirety, they consequently deserve no real affection, and therefore the sooner
we escape from them and leave the world the better. Again, no essential benefit
can be derived by the student of the Meemangsa from knowing what it is that makes
the killer of a goat sinless on pronouncing certain passages of the Veds, and
what is the real nature and operative influence of passages of the Ved, etc.
Again the student of Nyaya Shastra cannot
be said to have improved his mind after he has learned from it into how many
ideal classes the objects in the universe are divided and what speculative
relation the soul bears to the body, the body to the soul, the eye to the ear,
etc.
In order to enable your Lordship to
appreciate the utility or encouraging such imaginary learning as above
characterised, I beg your Lordship will be pleased to compare the state of
science and literature in Europe before the time of Lord Bacon, with the
progress of knowledge made since he wrote.
If it had been intended to keep the
British nation in ignorance of real knowledge, the Baconian philosophy would
not have been allowed to displace the system of the school-men, which was the
ebst calculated to perpetuate ignorance. In the same manner the Sangscrit
system of education would be the best calculated to keep this country in
darkness, if such had been the policy of the British Legislature. But as the
improvement of the native population is the object of the Government, it will
consequently promote a more liberal and enlightened system of instruction,
embracing mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistyr and anatomy, with
other useful sciences which may be
accomplished with the sum proposed by employing a few gentlemen of talents and
learning educated in Europe, and prosiding a college furnished with the
necessary books, instruments and other apparatus.
In representing this subject to your
Lordship I conceive myself discharging a solemn duty which I owe to my
countrymen and also to that enlightened Sovereign and Legislature which have
extended their benevolent cares to this distant land actuated by a desire to
improve its inhabitants and I, therefore, humbly trust you will excuse the
liberty I have taken in thus expressing my sentiments to your Lordship.
CALCUTTA; I
have, etc.,
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