विलियम जोन्स हों या मैक्समुलर ये हमारा काम कर रहे थे या अपना?

जिन दो प्राच्यविदों को प्राचीन भारतीय सभ्यता के प्रति सबसे अधिक संवेदनशील माना जाता है वे हैं विलियम जोन्स और मैक्समुलर। इन दोनों के बीच आते हैं मिल जिनको प्राचीन भारत की सभी उपलब्धियों की अपयाख्या करते हुए उससे अधिक क्रूरता से ध्वस्त करते देखा जा सकता है जितनी क्रूरता से मध्यकाल में मन्दिरों और मूर्तियों को ध्वस्त और नष्ट किया गया था। मिल का इतिहास लेखन ही भारतीय मार्क्सवादी इतिहास लेखन का आदर्श बना रहा। यह इतना इकहरा और नासमझी भरा तरीका था कि इसकी दूसरे सभी ब्रिटिश इतिहासकारों ने खुल कर निन्दा की परंतु सबसे निर्मम प्रहार मैक्समुलर ने किया था। मिल की पुस्तक आई॰सी॰एस॰ की प्रतियोगी परीक्षा में पढ़ाई जाती थी, इसलिए उन प्रत्याशियों के लिए आयोजित व्याख्यानमाला में जो पुस्तकाकार What can India teach us शीर्षक से प्रकाशित हुई, मैक्समूलर ने प्रत्याशियों को समझाया कि वे मिल की पुस्तक पढ़ कर भारत को समझ ही नहीं सकते। मैक्समुलर द्वारा मिल की भर्त्सना की बानगी उन्हीं के शब्दों में:

The book which I consider most mischievous, nay, which I hold responsible for some of the greatest misfortunes that have happened to India, is Mill's "History of British India," even with the antidote against its poison, which is supplied by Professor Wilson's notes. Mill's "History," no doubt, you all know, particularly the candidates for the Indian Civil Service, who, I am sorry to say, are recommended to read it, and are examined in it. Still, in order to substantiate my strong condemnation of the book, I shall have to give a few proofs:

Mill in his estimate of the Hindu character is chiefly guided by Dubois, a French missionary, and by Orme and Buchanan, Tennant, and Ward, all of them neither very competent nor very unprejudiced judges.

Mill, however, picks out all that is most unfavorable from their works, and omits the qualifications which even these writers felt bound to give to their wholesale condemnation of the Hindus. He quotes as serious, for instance, what was said in joke, namely, that "a Brahman is an ant's nest of lies and impostures." .......

But Mill goes further still, and in one place he actually assures his readers that a "Brahman may put a man to death when he lists." Infact, he represents the Hindus as such a monstrous mass of all vices, ......

Surely, if a Brahman might, as he says, put a man to death whenever he lists, it would be the strongest testimony in their favor that you hardly ever hear of their availing themselves of such a privilege, to say nothing of the fact--and a fact it is--that, according to statistics, the number of capital sentences was one in every 10,000 in England, butonly one in every million in Bengal.

जैसे मिल ने हिन्दुओं के विषय में विलियम जोन्स की प्रत्येक प्रशंसा का खंडन किया था वैसे ही मैक्समूलर ने मिल के प्रत्येक खंडन को सप्रमाण ध्वस्त करते हुए विलियम जोन्स का समर्थन किया। उदाहरण के लिए अगर मिल यह सिद्ध करना चाहता है कि हिंदू मुक़द्दमेबाज और झूठे होते हैं तो मैक्समुलर ग्रीक, चीनी, मुस्लिम और अंग्रेज लेखकों की टिप्पणियों की झड़ी लगा देते है। इनमें से उनके द्वारा उद्धृत केवल कुछ अधिकारी लेखकों के मंतव्य देखें:

If we turn to the accounts given by the Mohammedan conquerors of India, we find Idrisi, in his Geography (written in the eleventh century), summing up their opinion of the Indians in the following words:

"The Indians are naturally inclined to justice, and never depart from it in their actions. Their good faith, honesty, and fidelity to their engagements are well known, and they are so famous for these qualities that people flock to their country from every side."

Again, in the thirteenth century, Shems-ed-din Abu Abdallah quotes the following judgment of Bedi ezr Zenân: "The Indians are innumerable, like grains of sand, free from all deceit and violence. They fear neither death nor life."

In the thirteenth century we have the testimony of Marco Polo, who thus speaks of the _Abraiaman_, a name by which he seems to mean the Brahmans who, though, not traders by profession, might well have been employed for great commercial transactions by the king. ..... "You must know," Marco Polo says, "that these Abraiaman are the best merchants in the world, and the most truthful, for they would not tell a lie for anything on earth."

In the fourteenth century we have Friar Jordanus, who goes out of his way to tell us that the people of Lesser India (South and Western India) are true in speech and eminent in justice. In the fifteenth century, Kamal-eddin Abd-errazak Samarkandi (1413-1482), who went as ambassador of the Khakan to the prince of Kalikut and to the King of Vidyânagara (about 1440-1445), bears testimony to the perfect security which merchants enjoy in that country.

In the sixteenth century, Abu Fazl, the minister of the Emperor Akbar, says in his Ayin Akbari: "The Hindus are religious, affable, cheerful, lovers of justice, given to retirement, able in business, admirers of truth, grateful and of unbounded fidelity; and their soldiers know not what it is to fly from the field of battle."

And even in quite modern times the Mohammedans seem willing to admit that the Hindus, at all events in their dealings with Hindus, are more straightforward than Mohammedans in their dealings with Mohammedans.

Thus Meer Sulamut Ali, a venerable old Mussulman, and, as Colonel Sleeman says, a most valuable public servant, was obliged to admit that "a Hindu may feel himself authorized to take in a Mussulman, and might even think it meritorious to do so; but he would never think it meritorious to take in one of his own religion. There are no less than seventy-two sects of Mohammedans; and every one of these sects would not only take in the followers of every other religion on earth, but every member of every one of the other seventy-one sects; and the nearer that sect is to his own, the greater the merit of taking in its members."

अब आप समझ सकते हैं कि क्यों भारतीय मार्क्सवादी इतिहासकार प्राचीन भारतीय इतिहास के, इसकी सास्कृतिक उपलब्धियों के और खास करके ब्राहणों के पीछे क्यों पड़े रहे हैं और क्यों प्राच्यवादियों को न पढ़ने की सलाह देते रहे हैं। क्योंकि मैक्समूलर के शब्दों में इनका लेखन भी ठीक उतना ही विषाक्त, मूर्खतापूर्ण और दुष्टतापूर्ण सिद्ध होता है।

मैक्समूलर ने संस्कृत साहित्य, और विशेषत: धार्मिक साहित्य के अनुवाद और प्रकाशन आदि का जितना काम किया उससे अभिभूत होकर उनको मोक्षमूलर कह कर संबोधित किया जाता रहा।

इसके बाद भी प्रश्न रह जाता है कि विलियम जोन्स हों या मैक्समुलर ये हमारा काम कर रहे थे या अपना? हिन्दुओं का या ईसाइयों का। क्या जोन्स को 'सर' की उपाधि उनकी इस सूझ के कारण दी गई थी कि उन्होंने संस्कृत को ग्रीक और लातिन से सभी दृष्टयों से श्रेष्ठ सिद्ध कर दिया? यदि नहीं तो उस कारण की खोज करनी होगी।

ठीक यही प्रश्न मैक्समुलर को कंपनी की ओर से आर्थिक समर्थन हिन्दुत्व की सेवा के लिए दिया गया था? यदि नहीं तो कारण का पता लगाना होगा। यह काम हम कल करेंगे। क्रमशः