THE STUDY OF SANSKRIT 57
be able to understand the exact bearing of the observations made by others; and it is only thus that you will be able to arrive at well-reasoned convictions regarding the subject of your study. I am not recommending this course for the value of the results you may attain by it. Even in maturer years it is given only to a few to obtain results of value and make additions to knowledge. From your standpoint it is the spirit of independent research that matters; not its results. And every student must cultivate that spirit while at college. Lessing, the German poet and critic, is reported to have said that ‘if the Almighty were to offer him the truth in one hand and the search after the truth in the other, he would choose the hand that held the search after truth/
The next point I would urge upon your attention is the necessity for thoroughness in your study, especially because that quality has always distinguished Sanskrit learning. Specializ- ation has ever been the dominant feature of the Pandit; and for grasp, for accuracy and consistency of thought, he is unsurpassed. His knowledge is so systematically arranged and his exposition of it is so finished that he appears to have made a fine art of study. He has so far handed down the ancient learning with scrupulohs care. But he is now rapidly dis- appearing and if we, of the present generation do not follow his example in thoroughness of study and if we do not maintain his standard of knowledge we shall be losing for posterity one of the precious characteristics of our learning and will thereby be doing a disservice to the country. Already the belief is gaining ground — not altogether without reason I fear — that the English-knowing student of Sanskrit is shallow and super- ficial. It is your prime duty, particularly of such as are specializing in Sanskrit, to remove this stigma by the earnestness and diligence with which you apply yourselves to your study.
While retaining all that is excellent in the old-type learning, you should aim at more than a mere reproduction of it. First, you must learn to look at every question you study from the standpoint of its whole history. This is an aspect of enquiry which the Pandit may be said to have ignored altogether. His scholarship is undoubtedly thorough and exact but only so far as it goes ; and on the historical side it does not go very far.
