An un-copy-pasted Will Durant quote

by Idéfix Mon May 07, 2012 1:26 pm

Will Durant was the CHief expert on the history of India until he was no longer an expert. Here is a quote attributed to Will Durant that may have been omitted in the past as it was not found to be sufficiently secular*.

"The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history." Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: I - Our Oriental Heritage (1935) page 459.

I ran into it while reading something else, but thought it would be fun to post this quote here.

* The meaning of the word is pending redefinition by the benign dictator who will hopefully rule India one day.

by Guest Mon May 07, 2012 1:32 pm

panini press wrote:Will Durant was the CHief expert on the history of India until he was no longer an expert. Here is a quote attributed to Will Durant that may have been omitted in the past as it was not found to be sufficiently secular*.

"The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history." Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: I - Our Oriental Heritage (1935) page 459.

I ran into it while reading something else, but thought it would be fun to post this quote here.

* The meaning of the word is pending redefinition by the benign dictator who will hopefully rule India one day.

something i had posted on sulekha 11 years ago:

strange that rajiv attacks macaulites, and yet quotes profusely from will durant's "our oriental heritage" (written in 1935) when the available scholarship on india--almost all western-- was definitely not neutral due to the colonial era. [further, durant was never an indologist, only a generalist.] strange that rajiv quotes and writes about muslim atrocities on india, but fails to point out that his quotes (many of them from durant's 1935 book) are bound to be biased in as much as these are based upon colonial scholarship and as such are liable to exagerrate the negative features of the hindu/muslim interraction for their own ends. (easier for the brits to rule over india if the hindus and muslims are perpetually hostile to each other.) strange to note that rajiv makes no mention of the positive features of the hindu-muslim interraction. no mention is made, for example, of akbar.

no mention at all, also, of the fact that according to will durant himself (whom malhotra extensively quotes), akbar was the "wisest and justest king asia has ever known", and further that he was one of the most humane and most cultured of all kings known to history. no mention at all of the fact that jahangir would frequently visit the hindu sage jadrup with whom he would have religious and philosophical discussions. (mentioned by j. himself in his autobiography.) no mention of the fact that wajid ali shah asked his muslim subjects to celebrate holi together with the hindus after the taziya had been carried out since holi had fallen on the same day as moharram on that year, and since hindus had decided not to celebrate holi out of respect for muslim sentiments.

no mention of the fact that communal atrocities were carried out in pre-muslim india. for example, harsha of kashmir (this is not the great harshavardhana) destroyed several budhist monastaries; and sasanka of bengal derived considerable success as an anti-budhist crusader, cutting down the sacred tree under which the budha had achieved enlightenment. no mention of the fact that king harshavardhan was attacked murderously by a pasupata assasin--at precisely the spot where he was offering respects to three deities--budha, shiva, and the sun. he survived the attack, but the attack does tell us something about how even the pre-muslim hindus were communal themselves; this is of course understandable considering the age and the times our ancestors were living in. what is not understandable is to glorify that age as a time of spiritual perfection, and then characterise muslims as foriegn barbarians. no mention of the fact that we have vaisnava works which put the followers of shiva on the same level as a beast or an untouchable. (the durjana-mukha-capiteka of vamsidhara is one of many examples.) no mention of the fact that hindu kings had been destroying temples and idols of rival hindu rulers in pre-muslim india. no mention of the fact that there are images of several budhist deities trampling hindu deities like ganesha. no mention of the fact that hindus themselves are to blame for any foriegn invasions. if they didn't have the ingenuity and courage and strength to deal with foriegn invasions, surely they deserved to perish.

to give an example, mohammad bakhtiar--an early muslim invader--was able to drive away the aged laksmanasena from his capital navadvipa (nadiya) by a sudden raid of no more than eighteen horsemen. (the same mohammad bakhtiar attacking tribal areas in north-east india with 10,000 picked horsemen barely managed to return with all but a hundred of his army wiped out.) no mention of the positve features of the hindu/muslim interraction--how we together fought against the brits in 1857, and how this interracton permeated the essence of indian culture-- in paintings, architechture, poetry, music, food, among other things. i 'll stop now, since there are better things to do in life than wasting time on fanatics like rajiv and his bunch of loony fans. ( a person who writes that "how such sacred geography ended up in evil hands is something i am still trying to come to terms with" is clearly an intellecual non-entity who has much to learn before he seeks to teach others and do his dubious propaganda). hoping that at least some sulekhites will not be taken in by rajiv's rants.

An un-copy-pasted Will Durant quote

An un-copy-pasted Will Durant quote

Re: An un-copy-pasted Will Durant quote