100 INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES 



initiators, of glorious renown, Europe had already heard of the San- 

 skrit language. Europeans settled in India had studied it, mastered 

 it, and even used it, but their knowledge had borne no fruit. They 

 were missionaries dedicated to the triumph of the Church, seeking 

 in Sanskrit an instrument of controversy or the spread of doctrine. 

 Certainly patience, energy, learning, and dignity of life were theirs, 

 but they lacked the active sympathy necessary for success, the 

 sympathy which animates research and makes it fruitful. Moreover, 

 they had not only the Brahmans to contend with; outside India 

 they were closely watched by adversaries who forced them to be 

 prudent and paralyzed them. Voltaire and his school witnessed with 

 triumph and joy the fall of the sacred barriers of ancient history at 

 the end of the seventeenth century. Bossuet analyzed the secret 

 designs of Providence and pointed out their workings without going 

 beyond the world known to the Fathers of the Church; the Church 

 was the central point of humanity. And, behold, other peoples, other 

 civilizations, and other literatures, unknown to the Scriptures, had 

 come to light, and were laying claim to such antiquity as to eclipse 

 the ancient Jewish tradition. The Brahmans were not sparing with 

 millions or myriads of years in their chronology. The Encyclopaedia 

 only asked to believe them; the Church only thought how to contra- 

 dict them; there was no one capable of discussing them. 



But the mind of humanity was ripening; exact criticism was to sup- 

 plant idle controversy; facts were about to take the place of the arti- 

 fices of disputation. England, mistress of India by the fortune of arms, 

 opened up the Hindu genius to the world and the world to the Hindu 

 genius. France, vanquished on the field of battle, at least competed 

 with honor in the conquest of Asia's past. We know the admirable 

 history of Anquetil Duperron who went out as a volunteer to wring 

 from the distrustful dasturs 1 the sacred books of Zoroaster, which 

 he eventually brought back to France. The Bhagavad Gitd of 

 Wilkins, the Cakuntala of Jones excited the imagination of literary 

 Europe; Goethe's celebrated stanza rings in every one's memory. 

 The moment was auspicious; the classical tradition was worn out, 

 since the masterpieces of the seventeenth century; reason, proud 

 of her victory over imagination, too long a hindrance to her progress, 

 had nothing to offer in exchange but an insipid sentimentalism. 

 Men's minds impatiently desired violent emotions, dazzling pictures, 

 new landscapes, glaring lights; the senses demanded satisfaction 

 in their turn. The Persian and Arabian poets found translators and 

 imitators. The Egyptian campaign made the East popular. Bona- 

 parte at the Pyramids conjured up a past of forty centuries before 

 his wondering "soldiers. But Sanskrit, only lately won from the Brah- 



1 The learned among the Parsi priests; literally, the chief priest of a Temple 

 of Fire. 



