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XXVI.—Colonel Vans Kennepy on the Védanta System. 
Read 16th February 1833. ° 
Tue Council of the Royal Asiatic Society, fully coinciding with the sen- 
timents expressed by its Secretary at the General Meeting held on the 2d of 
March, has accordingly ordered that the substance of the remarks made by 
Mr. Haughton should, in justice to Mr. Colebrooke, be printed with Colonel 
Vans Kennedy’s paper, as follows: — 
Substance of Mr. (now Sir Graves C.) Haughton’s Remarks. 
' & Tt is well known to most of the Members that Mr. Colebrooke has been long in a 
state of health that incapacitates him from making a reply to Colonel Vans Kennedy’s 
objections; I therefore think it would be unfair to allow this meeting to separate with 
an impression unfavourable to our esteemed Director, more particularly as I conceive he 
has been misunderstood by the able writer of the paper. 
«“ J am not aware that Mr. Colebrooke has asserted, or ever meant to imply, that the 
basis of the Véddnta philosophy is material, although he certainly has said that the term 
mdyd, or illusion, which is now so commonly employed by the followers of this school, 
is not, favoured by a reference to the early commentators. It is, indeed, impossible to 
suppose that Mr. Colebrooke, the most profound expositor of the doctrines of the 
Hind’ metaphysicians that Europe has yet produced, could have entertained such a 
singular opinion; an opinion that would be contrary to that of almost every boy in 
India. If I may be allowed to offer an opinion upon the subject, I would say, that 
there is not one of the six dars‘an'as or schools, into which Hindi metaphysics are 
divided, that is essentially material. All these schools have the same primary ideas, 
employ the same terms, and use the same mode of argument; it is only in the 
application and in the results that they disagree; in short, their differences are 
rather those of sects than of distinct schools. The Colonel has said that the Hindis 
have no word that corresponds to our idea of matter. This opinion I conceive to 
be quite erroneous; for the word matter itself appears to be originally Sanscrit, 
and is employed in the first book of Menu* in the very sense of matter. Thus 
we find an'vyd mdtrd, &c. * With minute transformable atoms of the five elements, called 
* y. 27. 
