WESTERN INTELLIGENTIA ON HINDUISM

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WESTERN INTELLIGENTIA ON HINDUISM

Robert R. C. Zaehner (1913-1974) British historian of religion.

After a study of some forty years and more of the great religions of the world, I find none so perfect, none so scientific, none so philosophical and none so spiritual that the great religion known by the name of Hinduism. Make no mistake, without Hinduism, India has no future. Hinduism is the soil in to which India’s roots are stuck and torn out of that she will inevitably wither as a tree torn out from its place. And if Hindus do not maintain Hinduism who shall save it? If India’s own children do not cling to her faith who shall guard it. India alone can save India and India and Hinduism are one.

Albert Einstein, (1879-1955) physicist and the greatest scientist of modern century.

I have made the Geetha and Sansk rit Literature, the main source of my inspiration and guidance for the purpose of scientific investigations and formation of my theories
When I read the Bhagavad Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous. We owe a lot to Indians who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.

Niels Bohr, (1885-1962) Danish nuclear physicist who developed the Bohr model of the atom.

I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.

Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) Scientist, philosopher, theoretical physicist and the developer of the atomic bomb.

Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries. The general notions about human understanding which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of or new. What we shall find [in modern physics] is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom of the Hindus and the Buddhists.

Prof. Brian David Josephson, The youngest Nobel Laureate. 

The Vedanta and the Sankhya hold the key to the laws of mind and thought process which are co-related to the Quantum Field, i.e. the operation and distribution of particles at atomic and molecular levels.

Mark Twain

In religion, India is the only millionaire. The One land that all men desire to see and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.
India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, grandmother of legend, and great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only.

Alan Watts (1915-1973) a professor, graduate school dean and research fellow of Harvard University.

It is, indeed, a remarkable circumstance that when Western civilization discovers Relativity it applies it to the manufacture of atom-bombs, whereas this Oriental civilization applies it to the development of new states of consciousness.

Romain Rolland-French Scholar

If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.

Henry David Thoreau, American Philosopher.

What extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like the light of a higher and purer luminary which describes a loftier course through a purer stratum - free from particulars, simple, universal."

H. Nakamura ,Japan

India is culturally the Mother of Japan. For centuries it has, in her own characteristic way, been exercising her influence on the thought and culture of Japan."


Count Hermann Keyserling (1880-1946) philosopher, author, public speaker


Hinduism at its best has spoken the only relevant truth about the way to self-realization in the full sense of the word. Hinduism has produced the profoundest metaphysics that we know.

Hu Shih, a former Ambassador of China to USA.

India conquered and dominated China culturally for twenty centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border. This cultural conquest was never imposed by India on her neighbors. It was all the result of voluntary searching, voluntary learning, voluntary pilgrimage and voluntary acceptance on the part of China.

Will Durant, prominent American historian and philosopher

India was the mother of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages. She was the mother of our philosophy, mother through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother through village communities of self government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.


Alfred B. Ford, grandson of Henry Ford (founder of the Ford Motor), and Trustee member of Ford Motor Company.


For me the most important thing is to spread the Hindu knowledge about the soul. This is more important than any other knowledge and is my main priority.

Al Idrishi, Muslim scholar.

The Hindus are by nature inclined to justice and never depart from it in their actions. Their good faith, honesty, faithfulness to their promises are well known and they are famous for these qualities that people flock their country from every side.

Dr. Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975) the great British historian.

It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation is the ancient Hindu way. Here we have the attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together in to a single family. So now we turn to India. This spiritual gift, that makes a man human, is still alive in Indian souls. Go on giving the world Indian examples of it. Nothing else can do so much to help mankind to save itself from destruction.

Muhammad Dara Shikoh (1627-1658 AD) the favorite Sufi son of Mogul emperor, Shah Jehan.

After gradual research; I have come to the conclusion that long before all heavenly books, God had revealed to the Hindus, through the Rishis of yore, of whom Brahma was the Chief, His four books of knowledge, the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda. The Quran itself made veiled references to the Upanishads as the first heavenly book and the fountainhead of the ocean of monotheism.
In the family of religions, Hinduism is the wise old all-knowing mother. Its sacred books, the Vedas, claim, ‘Truth is one, but sages call it by different names.’ If only Islam, and all the rest of the monotheistic ‘book’ religions, had learned that lesson, all the horror of history’s religious wars could have been avoided. Which other religion has its God say, as Krishna does in the Bhagavad-Gita Gita, All paths lead to me.

George Bernard Shaw, Nobel Laureate in Literature

The apparent multiplication of gods is bewildering at the first glance, but you soon discover that they are the same GOD. There is always one uttermost God who defies personification. This makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world, because its one transcendent God includes all possible gods. In fact Hinduism is so elastic and so subtle that the most profound Methodist, and crudest idolater, are equally at home with it.
Courtesy: Hindu student society ( hss.hssumn.org)