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THE GREAT INDIAN TRADITION

Albert Einstein"We owe a lot to Indians who taught us how tocount, without which no worthwhile scientificdiscovery could have been made."

Mark Twain (1835-1910)"Land of religions, cradle of human race, birthplaceof human speech, grandmother of legend, greatgrandmother of tradition. The land that men withintellectual bent desire to see and having seen onceeven by a glimpse, would not give that glimpse forthe shows of the rest of the globe combined." -------- T. S. Eliot" Indian philosophers' subtleties make most of the great European philosopherslook like schoolboys." George Bernard Shaw, (1856-1950) Dramatist, Nobel Laureate in Literature"The Indian way of life provides the vision of the natural, real way of life. Wewestern veil ourselves with unnatural masks. On the face of India are the tenderexpressions which carry the mark of the Creators hand. " Francois Marie Voltaire (1694-1774) France's greatest writers and philosophers" I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganga--- astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc."" It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras wentfrom Samos to the Ganga (Ganges) to learn geometry...But he would certainly nothave undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins'science not been long established in Europe..."

H. G. Wells (1866-1946), English author and political philosopherThere is space in its philosophy for everyone,which is one reason why India is a home to every single religion in the world.

Sir William Jones, English philologist"Wherever we direct our attention to Hindu literature, the notion of infinity presentsitself."

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American author, essayist, lecturer, philosopher,Unitarian minister"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-Gita. It was as if an empire spoke to us,nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an oldintelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed ofthe same questions which exercise us."

George Bernard Shaw"This makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world, because its onetranscendent God includes all possible gods. In fact Hinduism is so elastic and sosubtle that the most profound Methodist, and crudest idolater, are equally at homewith it."

Professor F. Max Muller , German philosopher and philologist"In the history of the world, the Vedas fill a gap which no literary work in any otherlanguage could fill. I maintain that to everybody who cares for himself, for hisancestors, for his intellectual development, a study of the Vedic literature is indeedindispensable. "

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher and writer"In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of theUpanishads. It has been the solace of my life; and it will be the solace of my death.They are the product of the highest wisdom."

Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) Nuclear physicist, philosopher

"Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over allprevious centuries."

Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), German philosopher"India has created a special momentum in world history as a country to be searchedfor knowledge."

Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), German philosopher"It strikes everyone in beginning to form an acquaintance with the treasures ofIndian literature, that a land so rich in intellectual products and those of theprofoundest order of thought..." Roger-Pol Droit French philosopher, and Le Monde journalist,"The Greeks loved so much Indian philosophy that Demetrios Galianos had eventranslated the Bhagavad-Gita" . There is absolutely not a shadow of a doubt that theGreeks knew all about Indian philosophy."

Frederich von Schlegel, (1772-1829), German philosopher, critic, and writer, the mostprominent founder of German Romanticism"There is no language in the world, even Greek, which has the clarity and thephilosophical precision of Sanskrit," adding that " India is not only at the origin ofeverything she is superior in everything, intellectually, religiously or politically andeven the Greek heritage seems pale in comparison."

----- Voltaire, (1694-1774), France's greatest writers and philosophers"the Veda was the most precious gift for which the West had ever been indebted tothe East."

The UpanishadsAs is the human body, so is the cosmic bodyAs is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind.As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm..As is the atom, so is the universe.

Alfred North Whitehead, British MathematicianThe vastest knowledge of today cannot transcend the buddhi of the Rishis inancient India; and science, in its most advanced stage now, is closer to Vedantathan ever before.

Dr. Fritjof Capra, American physicistTo the Indian Rishis the divine play was the evolution of the cosmos throughcountless aeons. There is an infinite number of creations in an infinite universe. TheRishis gave the name kalpa to the unimaginable span of time between the beginningand the end of creation.

Herman Hesse (1877-1962) German poet and novelist, awarded the Nobel Prize forliterature in 1946 says: "The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdomwhich enables philosophy to blossom into religion."

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American Philosopher, writer, Unitarian, social critic,transcendentalist:"In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophyof the Bhagavad Gita in comparison with which our modern world and its literatureseems puny."

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, (1850-1919) famous American poet and journalist" India - the land of Vedas, the remarkable works contains not only religious ideasfor a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium,electronics, airship, all are known to the seers who founded the Veda.

Hans Torwesten, German philosopher and writerThe Vedas and the Upanishads are India's proudest and most ancient possessions.

They are the world's oldest intellectual legacies. They are the only composition inthe universe invested with Divine origin, and almost Divine sanctity. They are said toemanate from God, and are held to be the means for attaining God. Their beginningsare not known. They have been heirlooms of the Hindus from generation togeneration from time immemorial.

Professor F. Max Muller, German philosopher , philologist"The Vedic literature opens to us a chapter in what has been called the education ofthe human race, to which we can find no parallel anywhere else."

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, (1850-1919) famous American poet and journalist" India - the land of Vedas, the remarkable works contains not only religious ideasfor a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium,electronics, airship, all are known to the seers who founded the Vedas."

Jean-Sylvain Bailly, French Astronomer who calculated the orbit for the Halley's Comet"The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary noteven a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19-thcentury). The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as thediscovered by Tycho Brahe - a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria andalso to the Arabs who followed the calculations of the school... "The Hindu systemsof astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greek,Romans and - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge."

------ Aldous Huxley"Hinduism, the perennial philosophy" that is at the core of all religions.

founderof German RomanticismArthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher and writer

"How entirely does the Upanishad breathe throughout the holy spirit of the Vedas!How is every one, who by a diligent study of its Persian Latin has become familiarwith that incomparable book, stirred by that spirit to the very depth of his Soul !"

Romain Rolland (1866-1944) French Nobel laureate, Historian"Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to

scientific laws, moreover the former is never made a condition for the knowledgethey teach, but there are always scrupulously careful to take into consideration thepossibility that by reason both the agnostic and atheist may attain truth in their ownway. Such tolerance may be surprising to religious believers in the West, but it is anintegral part of Vedantic belief."

Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) Nuclear physicist, philosopher, developer of theatomic bomb"The Gita, the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue."

H. G. Wells (1866-1946), English author and political philosopherHinduism is synonymous with humanism. That is its essence and its great liberatingquality."

Lord Curzon (1859-1925) British statesman, Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, and laterbecame chancellor of Oxford University" India has left a deeper mark upon the history, the philosophy, and the religion ofmankind,than any other terrestrial unit in the universe."

William Butler Yeats (1856-1939) Irish poet, dramatist, and essayist and NobelLaureate"It was only my first meeting with the Indian philosophy that confirmed my vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless."

Mark Tully former BBC correspondent in India, authorBut I do profoundly believe that India needs to be able to say with pride,"Yes, our civilization has a Hindu base to it."

Paul William Roberts Professor at Oxford , award-winning television writer, producer,journalist, critic and novelist. "India is the only country that feels like home to me,the only country whose airport tarmac I have ever kissed upon landing."

Jean-Sylvain Bailly, French Astronomer who calculated the orbit for the Halley's Comet"The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary noteven a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19-thcentury). The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as thediscovered by Tycho Brahe - a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria andalso to the Arabs who followed the calculations of the school... "The Hindu systemsof astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greek,Romans and - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge." the Jewsderived from the Hindus their knowledge."

Pierre Simon de Laplace ( 1749-1827) French mathematician, philosopher, andastronomer, a contemporary of Napoleon. Laplace is best known for his nebularhypothesis of the origin of the solar system. " It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by tensymbols, each receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value, a profoundand important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit.But its very simplicity, the great ease which it has lent to all computations, puts ourarithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions, and we shall appreciate thegrandeur of this achievement the more when we remember that it escaped thegenius of Archimedes and Appollnius, two of the greatest men produced byantiquity."

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