Kitabı oku: «Truths», sayfa 8
Since hardly two decades the English people had established their rule in India, had started their pioneering works there. The first reports of the Calcuttan society were received with true enthusiasm; everything that came from there was accepted with faithful reverence, and new revelations about the ‘oldest’ language and wisdom of mankind with boundless longing. A language ‘more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either’, as Sir William Jones said, and yet in near kinship with both...”
As promised, we shall deal with Sir William Jones later. We have read, yes, we had to read repeatedly these lines written by Salomon Lefmann in 1881. Not because of his remarkable style of expressions like: ‘with faithful reverence’ or ‘with boundless longing’. No. We are also not criticising that Salomon Lefmann, as a religious Jew, for his failure to realise that Hebrew and anything Jewish had been excluded from the blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian culture more than half a century earlier. We criticise solely this culture that produced and produce not only “anti-Semitism” but “Salomon Lefmanns” as well.
Even in Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann’s and in Franz Bopp’s lifetime one could have known how cruelly the successors of Columbus had committed genocide and how beastly the massacres in the land of “new revelations about the ‘oldest’ language and wisdom of mankind” performed by the “Vasco da Gamas”, by Portuguese, by Britons, by Dutch and by French heirs. There was no dearth of reports given by eyewitnesses.
How much perversion did it require to write a sentence like: ‘Since hardly two decades the English people had established their rule in India, started their pioneering works there’? And how should one evaluate the fact that this sentence or sentences like this has not been criticised and corrected by even one single renowned poet, writer, theologian, philosopher, scientist belonging to “the wonder that was” this culture prevailing up to our days?
It is absolutely not the case that Salomon Lefmann wasn’t able to formulate critical sentences. What did he write referring to Napoleon? ‘While princes and peoples anxiously following the current events were directing their eyes to France, where a powerful war lord, having taken possession of the inheritance of the revolution, had thence seized power over Germany and Europe, the philosophers and scholars were looking at a Far East and at a far away past.’
We do not wish to raise such questions like: Did people, ordinary people, live in the Orient in those days? Or did anything else exist in the Orient besides riches, ancient wisdom–culture–language, other booties and “the fulfilment of the most beautiful dreams and presentiments” as well? Or, for that matter what is the implicit message in Lefmann’s lines? Does it not imply, rather plainly that without the ‘pioneering works...of the Calcuttan society', without ‘new revelations’ by a William Jones all cultural assets in “India” would have been lost for mankind? Do the cultural assets actually belong to their “discoverers”? Yes?
We are not discussing here all these questions. We don’t wish the descendants of Salomon Lefmann to make him a scapegoat for the intellectual lapses within this culture. We are conscious that scions of this culture have learnt to deny, every responsibility for their atrocities: Crusade, Inquisition, war, genocide in two continents, slave trade, robbery, exploitation, cultural genocide, “anti-Semitism”, annihilation of European Jews, dropping atom bombs, breaking up Palestine, defoliation in Vietnam by dioxin (agent orange), destruction of ancient memorials in Iraq, in Libya and the recent “crusades”. Sorry. Not crusades. The recent moves are “campaigns for democracy”, “campaigns for humanism” of the “civilised international community”. Saturation bombing to prevent “humanitarian disasters” included. Just to indicate the peaks of their criminal activities. The “civilised international community” deny vehemently every responsibility as a matter of principle.
*****
We presently get back to Friedrich Maximilian Müller, to Hermann Brockhaus, to August Wilhelm von Schlegel and to Franz Bopp. The academic mentor, Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann, of the young Franz Bopp, has read the book published by Friedrich von Schlegel, the younger of the Schlegel brothers in 1808: Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (On the language and wisdom of the “Indier”). This is the very first “Indological” publication in the German language. The German Orientalists celebrated it like ‘a new gospel’. Before that, Germany knew nothing about a language called Sanskrit.
Friedrich von Schlegel acquires his knowledge of the Sanskrit language in Paris as well, as it is handed down. We shall deal with him a little later. But there is one question we must raise here and now. Why did nobody at Aschaffenburg consider sending Franz Bopp, first to Friedrich von Schlegel? Where was he in 1812? What has been known about his knowledge of the Sanskrit language? Was Friedrich von Schlegel’s knowledge of Sanskrit not good enough? If it were so, how could he write the book Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier? We shall have to check the quality of his knowledge of “Sanskrit” as well.
Our method of checking, as already stated, is straightforward and simple. We just find out, where, when, from whom and for how long a person has learnt “Sanskrit”, if he claims to have acquired the qualifications of teaching that language called Sanskrit to others.
First we return to Franz Bopp’s vita. Life then is as unpredictable as it is today for the “geniuses”, who are as prone to human follies as they are today. Whilst Franz Bopp realises that there would be no future for him in Aschaffenburg, he meets rather accidentally a restless Orient enthusiast, a young lady called Helmine de Chézy (1783–1856). About this meeting, she is quoted in the Brockhaus encyclopaedia in 1858:
“I found Aschaffenburg in 1812 (unlike 1811) very depressing. Karl von Dalberg was also away; after some time he returned. He was not cheerful. ...There was little intellectual stimulation in Aschaffenburg. Therefore, the acquaintance with Franz Bopp was very welcome to me. He was about to go to Paris in order to learn Persian and Sanskrit from Chézy. In the meantime I taught him to read Persian and many verbs and nouns. Chézy with his flaming heart received him like a father. He opened for him the gates of science and gave his pupil all of his interior treasures.”
In 1812 Franz Bopp is just 21, Helmine de Chézy 29 and Antoine Léonard de Chézy 39. The Chézys are already divorced since 1810. Well! Helmine is actually Wilhelmine von Klenke. Her father a military officer and her mother a poetess. They were divorced early. Wilhelmine grows up ‘under unregulated circumstances’, whatever that might mean. In 1799 she marries Gustav Freiherr von Hastfer at the age of sixteen and divorces after a year. The countess de Genlis invites her in 1801 to Paris. From 1803 to 1807 she edits the journal “französische Miscellen” (French Miscellanea). In 1805 she marries at the age of twenty-two Antoine Léonard de Chézy, a known Orientalist in Paris. He will start teaching Persian in 1807 and later, in 1816, he will become the first Sanskrit professor at the Collège de France at the age of thirty-three, the very first Sanskrit professorship in Europe. We have taken a note of this.
In 1810 she gets separated from Antoine Léonard de Chézy, retains his name, stumbles from one relationship to another, works as a journalist and leads the life of a “liberated women” of that time. She recommends young Franz Bopp to go to Paris, especially because her ex-husband, Antoine Léonard de Chézy, has mastered Sanskrit. But how did 115Antoine Léonard de Chézy learn Sanskrit and from whom? We shall deal with him a little later as well.
*****
Whatever could have happened, but did not, also tells stories; stories about the limited horizon, about the intellectual attitudes of the protagonists of that time, about the patterns of communication, about communication channels and all that goes with it. We must however now stick to Franz Bopp’s facilities of learning the Sanskrit language in Paris of 1812.
The French occupants and missionaries also have plundered indiscriminately in India including manuscripts, books and artefacts without being able to understand their significance. Finally, these booties landed either in the royal library or in the royal museum in Paris. They were somehow sorted and catalogued without knowing what was done. There was none to identify them. There was none to be able to read and discriminate them. France has dragged out more cultural assets from Egypt than from India. A collection of manuscripts and of artefacts in a library generally becomes a watering ground for enthusiasts of all kind, especially if the curator is such a charming “contact-exchange” like Louis Mathieu Langlès (1765 - 1824).
There is an interesting obituary on him by A.J. Mahul in the Annuaire nécrologique, volume VI, 1821– 26. “As an officer’s son Louis Mathieu Langlès gets the job of his father in the Watch-house of the Tribunal of the Marshals of France in Péronne near Mont Didier, in the Picardie on August 23, 1765 after finishing school. Aspiring for a more advantageous career in the colonial service in India he wants to study oriental languages. He is permitted to attend lectures of Caussin de Perceval on Arabic and of Ruffin on Persian at the Collège de France. When he publishes a French translation of Political and military institutions of Tamerlan’ – from an English translation by major Davy – at the age of 22, Marshal de Richelieu, the then dean of the Tribunal of the Marshals of France, sponsors him. He is glad to ensure that the 25 years old “young scholar” of him got one of the twelve scholarships.”
Louis Mathieu Langlès is enthusiastic all right. He does not hesitate to claim to have reconstructed the alphabets of the Tartaric language and cast them in letters for printing. When he publishes them he is accused of plagiarism, because Michel-Ange-André Le Roux’s “Deshauterayes” had already published the same 20 years earlier in the Encyclopédie. Well, Louis Mathieu Langlès could have also got away with it! Isn’t it? Unfortunately for him that someone did have a memory of 20 years.
Louis Mathieu Langlès tries the same exercise with other languages of the orient too. He loves these languages, celebrates them on all occasions, inserts words or characters into his books to draw attention of his readers by the bizarre appearance of those exotic forms, and publishes oriental texts. He contributes to popularise Arabic, Turkish and Persian in France. No one ever wanted to know when, where and from whom he could have learnt those languages.
He submits several memorandums to the National Assembly between 1790 and 1794, ultimately resulting in the setting up of the École des langues orientales vivantes (School for contemporary oriental languages) at the national library in Paris. He is appointed the president and professor for Persian and Malaysian at the age of twenty-nine. But he does not teach these languages there. Why does he not teach these languages there or at all? The reason is not difficult to comprehend. He just does not know them.
In 1792 Louis Mathieu Langlès becomes none the less the curator of the oriental manuscripts at the national library at Paris. Nothing “oriental” is then on in France without him. He publishes a lot. These are translations from English into French. A genuine “Oriental Langlès”. Among the orators at his burial in 1824 is also a representative of the “Asiatick Society” in Kolkata, founded by “Oriental Jones”, i.e. by Sir William Jones.
At the École of the langues orientales vivantes Baron Antoine Issac Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838) is appointed as the first teacher for “Contemporary Oriental Languages”. This is rather a highflying term because in 1795 only Arabic is taught there. From 1806 on Antoine Issac Silvestre de Sacy teaches also Persian. As far as “Oriental Matters” are concerned, nothing else is available there when Franz Bopp arrives in Paris.
We get to know from his first letter from Paris dated January 1, 1813, to his “most honourable friend” Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann (highlighted by us):
“...ever since I am here I am busy only with Arabic, because I was advised to acquire some skill in it before I go for other oriental languages. After gaining some skill in the Arabic I shall begin with Persian, so I hope after 14 days to be able to read light prose in this language; ...Only the Indian languages are not taught here, and nobody studies them. I shall be the only one in the summer, who is engaged with them. I think indeed to begin with Persian and Sanskrit at the same time during the summer. ...Soon I hope to send you some blossoms of Persian and Indian poets in translation, if only my fate be so favourable as to let me be in Paris long enough. Chézy will be able to afford me good services when I begin the Sanskrit. He is the only one, as I hear, who engages in this language here.”
We fail to understand why Franz Bopp does not begin with Sanskrit immediately. The fact that he is advised to learn Arabic first reveals actually the ignorance prevailing in Paris in 1812/1813. Obviously it is assumed that Arabic and Sanskrit are related to each other. We remember it is handed down that Franz Bopp guided August Wilhelm von Schlegel to the study of the Sanskrit language in Paris. How Franz Bopp could do it? He does let us know neither that had he known the Sanskrit language, nor that there were facilities to learn the Sanskrit language in Paris until the summer 1813. We must conclude that August Wilhelm von Schlegel never had an opportunity to learn the Sanskrit language. At most, Franz Bopp had talked to him about “Sanskrit”, after others had talked to him. Therefore, Hermann Brockhaus could have learnt only what August Wilhelm von Schlegel knew from others about and on “Sanskrit”, but definitely not the Sanskrit language. Thus it is comprehensible that Friedrich Maximilian Müller went to Berlin to learn the Sanskrit language.
After this tiny aside, we get back to Franz Bopp in Paris. The following episode is interesting and revealing. In his reply on March 14, 1813 Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann had announced to him:
“I am glad of being able to tell you something pleasant this time: Prof. Othmar Frank, author of “Das Licht vom Orient (The Light from the Orient) & the Commentatio de lingua persica (Comments on Persian) – a man full of deep knowledge wrote to me recently that he will be travelling to Paris on a grant of the Bavarian king to avail himself of the oriental treasures there. The thought came to me as a flash to get the two of you in touch, because you could be useful to each other to the good cause. I wrote therefore to him about you & he will look out for you in the library, where you could also introduce him to M. de Chezy.”
Here is the reaction of Franz Bopp (highlighted by us):
“Don’t you have any news from Frank? He told me he would try to go to England. I cannot assess Frank's knowledge in oriental languages; nevertheless, they do not seem to me to be profound. He did not disclose much in this regard and was anyway very secretive. He started to learn Sanskrit here with me approximately at the same time. He bought the printed Ramayana for the library in Munich on my repeated suggestion, and afterwards he concealed it from me. He also concealed from me that he had got manuscripts from the imperial library. He let me feel altogether a petty jealousy.”
We are at a complete loss for words. But not of our ability to reckon. On March 14, 1813, Othmar Frank was announced. Franz Bopp began to learn Sanskrit approximately simultaneously with him. This could have been in summer 1813 only. Franz Bopp’s next letter we cite to his academic mentor is dated April 29, 1814 is revealing (highlighted by us).
“...I have overcome the first hurdles of the language of Indian wisdom. I see now, to my delight, that I am able to master thoroughly the most beautiful, most important, presumably also one of the most difficult languages of the Orient without any help from others. ... I find that the similarity of Sanskrit with Latin and Greek is very large. This can be extended further than Schlegel (Friedrich von) has done. ...If we had had a great prince or would get one now, I could cherish the hope to get princely support to travel to India, if I succeeded with a smart translation.”
Franz Bopp has developed quite well in his 22 years of age. He claims in the same letter to have already read ‘Bhagawatgita, a small piece with plenty of deep philosophical content, translated by Wilkins into English’. How did he do it? From summer 1813 to the End of April? Was it 10 or just 8 months? The main thing is that he didn’t disclose to his academic teacher who actually was his Sanskrit teacher. His academic teacher didn’t enquire either. Therefore, we too cannot find out who the teacher was.
The reply of his academic mentor of July 22, 1814 is full of congratulations for his “dear friend”. He would also like to get “the catalogue of the Indian manuscripts by Langlès and Hamilton”, so that he could “more exactly indicate” what his pupil “should look into more closely”. He informs him also that he would ask “first our Royal Bavarian Commissioner Freiherr von Aretin, and later the king himself” that Franz Bopp should be given the opportunity “first to go to England and then presumably also to India”. For some years Othmar Frank was not to be mentioned. Remarkable academic morals! Is it any different nowadays? The quality of Franz Bopp’s mobbing appears to be remarkably modern.
We must rummage through the correspondence to put together all the bits of a puzzle to gain a clear picture of how Franz Bopp turns into a Sanskrit scholar. Even before he starts learning the Sanskrit language he already knew: “The German language is so very much suitable to render faithfully the original Indian thoughts. And I want to contribute my utmost that it (Ramayana) can be read in German language. I am already now capable to translate the first part, available in English translation. The second part is said also to appear soon. ... Without a translation, even if it were a very free one, I am unable to translate any Indian manuscript yet, Chézy, either, hardly can, although he is engaged in that 6 years longer.” We note the date July 27, 1814. Accordingly, Antoine Léonard de Chézy must have begun to learn Sanskrit in 1808. But how and from whom? We shall find out in a while.
Franz Bopp comes to Paris in 1812 to learn Sanskrit from Antoine Léonard de Chézy only. Until summer 1813, he doesn’t learn any other language but Arabic. Why? We remember also, the handed-down information in the European scholarly literature is just false that Franz Bopp guided August Wilhelm von Schlegel in Paris to learn Sanskrit. Uncorrected yet. What does it mean? Does it tell any story? We are too simple to understand these inconstancies.
In July 1814 Franz Bopp reports to his academic mentor Windischmann also that he cannot learn Sanskrit from Antoine Léonard de Chézy. But why not? Didn’t he know Sanskrit? Instead of indicating a reason, Franz Bopp maintains that he doesn’t require any teacher for learning the Sanskrit language. Since (highlighted by us):
“Indeed I think, ...when I shall have penetrated well into everything which has been written on Indian mythology in European languages, and if I will then be able to proceed further and to draw from the sources (and what did the others do?), when I shall have become conversant with the philosophical systems of India as well as with that of our fatherland (Vaterland) and that of the Greek, then, dear friend, I will be ready to understand Indian literature without any translation and, if necessary, also without a dictionary.” How revealing!
Franz Bopp has come to know that the Englishmen from Kolkata were planning to bring out a Sanskrit-English-Dictionary in two years. But did he really need it? According to his claims, he mastered Sanskrit characters and their sounds (“their sounds”? How?) so well that he is already thinking of “occupying” them in his own way. How? What did he mean? Well, on July 27, 1814 he explains it to his academic mentor Windischmann:
“...I have worked out an alphabet by which one can reproduce the system of Sanskrit alphabetic characters in a pure form, ... Before I write the grammar, I presumably should make my system of characters known and for this purpose I want to take the Bhagawatgita, the most beautiful parts of which you already know from Schlegel’s (Friedrich von) translation, and publish the (original) text with a very literal translation in Latin, and my brother will probably make the Dewanagari alphabetic characters for a few pages.”
Franz Bopp discloses also his motive behind this undertaking. We read in the same letter dated July 27, 1814:
“Whatever is printed in Calcutta in its original text is so expensive that hardly any individual, who is not very rich, can acquire several volumes without great sacrifices. The 1st volume of Ramayana costs here 160 Francs, the grammar of Carey 280 Francs etc.”
He is concerned about the “price”. He wants to print the original texts so cheap that many Germans could afford them. And in order to fulfil this missionary zeal he wants to “occupy” Sanskrit, take “possession” of Sanskrit, in his own way. He not only feels fit for this purpose, he formulates even his own claim, also on July 27. He establishes his claim basing just upon invented facts:
“One writes the Sanskrit in more than 10 different ways. Every different nation in India has adapted its system of alphabetic characters to the Dewanagari or to the actual Sanskrit system of alphabetic characters, and writes its Sanskrit accordingly. Why shouldn’t we Europeans, whose languages do actually originate from Sanskrit, also adapt our alphabet to that, in order to spread the precious writings of the “Indier” all the more?”
Well why shouldn’t the Europeans even write their own “Sanskrit-literature“ in the next step? This is not just a sarcastic question. We take a note for our memory. This is also a reminder for modern scholars.
Franz Bopp has repeatedly emphasised that he has learnt Sanskrit without any help. All on his own. Absolutely self-taught. But this could only have meant, “Help” from persons as teachers. By this time about half a dozen Sanskrit “grammar guides” were available in Paris. All in English and Franz Bopp knows English, – a grammar by the missionary William Carey (this he himself has referred to), A grammar of the Sungscrit language, Serampore 1804, by Henry Thomas Colebrooke, A grammar of the Sanscrit language, Calcutta 1805, by Charles Wilkins, A grammar of the Sanskrita language, London 1808, and An essay on the principles of Sanskrit grammar. Part I, Calcutta 1810, by “Senior Merchant on the Bengal establishment” H. P. Forster. How was their quality? Our question is more rhetorical. These were the first ventures by persons with little educational training and with questionable intellectual abilities. The quick sequence of the publishing dates indicates not only haste. We shall deal with all these persons in due time.
From a letter of recommendation by Professor Windischmann in 1814 to the Commissioner of the Bavarian government, Baron Aretin, we get also some more information about the period of Franz Bopp’s apprenticeship in Paris:
“I led him by instructions to the myth systems and exquisitely in the large and meaningful teachings of the Indian philosophy (as far as they are known to us from thorough translations) to a better understanding of what he needs to do in order to become most thoroughly acquainted with the language. Now there was no halt; he asked for the sources, and it was no trouble to prompt his father (having six children) to support him, as far as possible, for a few years in Paris. There he has been learning first the difficult Sanskrit language since nearly two years, under instructions of M. Chezy, then Arabic and Persian under the instructions of M. Sylvestre de Sacy to the extent that especially in the first one, only a few will be found in Germany and France equal to him (How should he be able to judge this?). Chezy also felt this soon from this progress of the young man and became a little jealous (How should he be able to ascertain this?); but he did not allow himself to be put off by that. Moreover, when some difficulties were put in his way in the further lending out of books and manuscripts he has copied himself what he needed for his current work in Dewanayhavi (!) letters (which letters?) in the most arduous way to carry on his work without interruption. He was thus forced by need to put together by himself a whole grammar which he ultimately worked through with so much zeal and success that he will be able to publish his own grammar for the general benefit within a year, combined with a collection of the most beautiful spots of Indian poems and teachings; and all these he will get printed in accordance with the Indian text in his own skilfully developed European alphabet system corresponding to the Indian pronunciation (Indian pronunciation? Something like ‘Dewanayhavi’? How should he be able to pronounce any word? He does not get an opportunity of listening to the sounds of the alphabets and of the words.), because Sanskrit letters are so expensive. He has also given me specimens of his translations from the Sanskrit, exactly in the verse measures of the original of the great Indian poem "Ramayana" (of the great Indian poem "Ramayana"?), which bears the same accuracy in dealing with the inner sense and expression as Friedrich Schlegel’s (up to now the only person in Germany who presumably understands Sanskrit).
Much can be expected from such a talent for thorough knowledge of the language and literature which becomes day by day more important for the history of mankind, for the knowledge about the oldest religions, laws and teachings and we Germans should neglect them the less, the more in England great progress is made and professorship is being established in the universities all over (professorship is being established in the universities all over?).
Since the domestic circumstances of the tireless young man do not suffice, however, to support him up to the maturity in this profession and now His Majesty has been pleased to sanction most graciously an adequate grant to meet the needs, so I appeal on behalf of Mr. Bopp that Your Excellency may most kindly take up this matter and lead it to the end, so that our true Indians might soon enjoy the paternal grace of our beloved king and be thus incited to accomplish his work, already begun, with increased zeal and cheerfulness. As far as his actual needs are concerned, these are not considerable. He lived up to now parsimoniously and meagrely and tried to earn what he needed additionally whenever the time allowed him by some extra work. However, as he is hindered by his scarce resources to acquire by his own means the necessary helps for his studies, already available in printed form, having lost far too much time with arduous copying, it is now primarily to be seen to it that he can dedicate his energy undivided to the big objects of his profession and be able to procure himself the necessary aids, among which as the most urgent yet, for example, the edition of Ramayana appeared in Calcutta (in which language?), which, to begin with, he wants to translate completely, then the Sanskrit Chrestomathy by Carrie (by whom?) etc. etc., costing 180 and 140 francs, so I believe un-authoritatively, that, all brought into most precise estimate, 600 guilders would be not too much, to support him during his still necessary stay in Paris. His later transfer to England will then ask for further grace by our sovereign in accordance with the higher prices in that country. Besides this grace the firmest support by the Royal Legation might be necessary to warrant a more free use of the sources. Recommending the whole matter to your favour, I remain in deepest reverence Your Excellency’s most obedient servant Windischmann.”
This document alone, kept in Würzburg-state-archive, manifests the then academic culture in all facets of its factitiousness, as well as of the privileged section of the society. In 1816 in Frankfurt Franz Bopp publishes his book: Über das Konjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenen der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache. Nebst Episoden des Ramayan und Mahabharat in genauen metrischen Übersetzungen aus dem Originaltext und einigen Abschnitten aus den Vedas (On the conjugation system of the Sanskrit language in comparison with that the Greek, Latin, Persian and Germanic language. With episodes of Ramayan and Mahabharat in precise metric translations from the original text and with some sections from the Vedas). Edited and prefaced by K. J. Windischmann. This book would have appeared – this is just our impression – also without Franz Bopp’s meeting Antoine Léonard de Chézy. But the issue is: how does Franz Bopp come to know all this between 1812 and 1816? Fantasies? Revelations? And what is right and what is wrong in this book? Who could and who should have checked? There had never been questions like these. And we know: no questions, no answers. This is the wonder that is this culture.
Franz Bopp is now 24 years old. He gets the scholarship. Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann could not have had personal knowledge of anything he has written down as “expert opinion” in his argumentation. He had to believe in the contents of those letters written by Franz Bopp from Paris. We refrain from a comment at this place. We read instead in Franz Bopp’s application in 1816 to get a scholarship for England:
