s, when it was a question of
national triumphs, too bombastic and often too diametrically opposed to
fact, to inspire with confidence any one less prejudiced than the
average European Orientalist. To seek to establish the true dates in
Indian history by connecting its events with the mythical "invasion,"
while confessing that "one would look in vain in the literature of the
Brahmans or Buddhists for any allusion to Alexander's conquest, and
although it is impossible to identify any of the historical events
related by Alexander's companions with the historical tradition of
India," amounts to something more than a mere exhibition of incompetence
in this direction: were not Prof. Max Muller the party concerned--we
might say that it appears almost like predetermined dishonesty.

These are harsh words to say, and calculated no doubt to shock many a
European mind trained to look up to what is termed "scientific
authority" with a feeling akin to that of the savage for his family
fetich. They are well deserved, nevertheless, as a few examples will
show. To such intellects as Prof. Weber's--whom we take as the leader
of the German Orientalists of the type of Christophiles--certainly the
word "obtuseness" cannot be applied. Upon seeing how chronology is
deliberately and maliciously perverted in favour of "Greek influence,"
Christian interests and his own predetermined theories--another, and
even a stronger term should be applied. What expression is too severe
to signify one's feelings upon reading such an unwitting confession of
disingenuous scholarship as Weber repeatedly makes ("Hist. Ind. Lit.")
when urging the necessity of admitting that a passage "has been touched
up by later interpellation," or forcing fanciful chronological places
for texts admittedly very ancient--"as otherwise the dates would be
brought down too far or too near!" And this is the keynote of his
entire policy: fiat hypothesis, ruat caelum! On the other hand Prof.
Max Muller, enthusiastic Indophile as he seems, crams centuries into his
chronological thimble without the smallest apparent compunction....

These two Orientalists are instances, because they are accepted beacons
of philology and Indian paleography. Our national monuments are dated
and our ancestral history perverted to suit their opinions; the
pernicious evil has ensued, that as a result History is now recording
for the misguidance of posterity the false annals and distorted facts
wh