Western Quotes about Vedas

Great India (through Veda) is the origin of everything intellect, religion and politics and even Greek Heritage seems pale in comparison (Frederich Von Schlegel, German philosopher)

India has created a special momentum in the world history as the country to search for Knowledge. (Friedrich Hegel)

'The Veda is a Book of Knowledge and Wisdom comprising the Book of Nature, the Book of Religion, the Book of Prayers, the Book of Morals and so on. The Word 'Veda' means Wit, Wisdom, Knowledge and truly the Veda is condensed Wit, Wisdom, and Knowledge.' Philosophy of Zoroastrianism by Dadachnji, P.100

 

Readers of the Vedas who do not know this wonderful characteristic feature of the Veda in determining the physical as well as the spiritual by means of the self same words, are apt to be misled by the false idea that the Veda looks upon fire, air, dawn, the sun and the other agent forces, phenomena or objects of nature as Divine beings to whom the Vedic Rishis, prayed for strength health, wealth, long life, brave sons, rich possessions and so on. But the Vedas teach nothing but mono-theism of the purest kind, the belief that this universe manifests the love, might, wisdom and glory of God who eternally evolves and dissolves alternately innumerable systems of worlds, for the benefit, discipline and well-being of Jeevatmas, according to the eternal laws of nature (called Rita in the Vedas) and also according to the Law of Karmas (as implied in it) etc. P. 10

  1. Oh blessed land of Hind (India) thou art worthy of reverence for in thee has God revealed True Knowledge of Himself.
  2. What a pure light do these four revealed books afford to our mind's eyes like the (charming and cool) lustre of the dawn? These four, God revealed unto His prophets (Rishis) in Hind.
  3. And He thus teaches all races of mankind that inhabit His Earth. 'Observe (in your lives) the knowledge I have revealed in the Vedas' for surely God has revealed them.
  4. 4. Those treasures are the Saama and Yajur which God has published. O my brothers! revere these, for they tell us the good news of salvation.
  5. The two next, of these four, Rik and Atharva (Atar) teach us lessons of (Universal) brotherhood. These two (Vedas) are the beacons that warn us to turn towards that goal (universal brotherhood).

(Translation of the Arabic Poem by Lavi-an Arabic Poet about 1700 B.C.)

'In the earliest records which have come down to us from the past, we find ample indications that accepted standard of morality and the conduct resulting from these were in no degree inferior to those which prevail to-day, though in some respects they differed from ours. The wonderful collection of hymns known as the Vedas is a vast system of religious teachings as pure and lofty as those of the finest portions of the Hebrew Scriptures. Its authors were fully our equals in their conception of universe and the Deity expresses in the finest poetic language.' P.11

'We must admit that the mind which conceived and expresses in appropriate language such ideas as are everywhere present in those Vedic hymns, could not have been inferior to those of the best of our religious teachers and poets, to our Milton, Shakespeare and Tennyson.'
(Social Environment and Moral Progress by Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, P. 14)

 

'After the latest researches into the history and chronology of books of Old Testament, we may safely now call the Rigveda as the oldest book , not only of the Aryan humanity, but of the whole world.

'It is evident then (1) That the higher upto the source of the Vedic religion, we push our enquiries, the purer and simpler we find the conception of God, and that (2) In proportion as we come down the stream of time, the more corrupt an complex we find it. We conclude therefore that the ‘Vedic Aryans’ did not acquire their knowledge of the divine attributes and functions empirically, as in that case, we should find at the end what we now find in the beginning. Hence we must seek for a theory which will account alike for the acquisition of that Knowledge, the God-like conception of Varuna, and for that gradual depravation which culminated.
(The Teachings of the Vedas by Rev. Morris Philip, P. 104)

 

'We have pushed our enquiries as far back in time as the records would permit, and we have found that the religious and speculative thought of the people was far purer, simpler and more rational at the farthest point we reached, than at the nearest and the latest in the Vedic age.

The conclusion therefore, is inevitable viz, that the development of religious thought in India has been uniformly downward, and not upward, deterioration and not evolution. We are justified, therefore in concluding that higher and purer conceptions of the Vedic Aryans were the results of a primitive Divine Revelation.
(The Teachings of the Vedas by Rev. Morris Philip, P. 231)

 

They (The Vedas) are without doubt the oldest works composed in Sanskrit. Even the most ancient Sanskrit writings allude to the Vedas as already existing. The Vedas stand alone in their solitary splendor standing as beacon of Divine Light for the onward march of Humanity.
(Historical Researches by Prof. Heeren, Vol. II, P. 127)

 

'The Rigveda is the most sublime conception of the greatest highways of humanity.'
(Quoted in the Hindu Superiority by Har Bilas Sharada, P. 179-180)

 

'Only the gaze of the clairvoyant, directed upon the mysteries of the past, may reveal un-uttered wisdom which lies hidden behind these writings (The Vedas). P 9.' 'Whence did our pre-historic ancestors in their supposed terrible state of ignorance and abandonment, derive these extra-ordinary intuitions-that knowledge and assurance which we ourselves are re-conquering.'
(The Great Secret by Maeterlinck, P. 44)

 

'What extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like the light of higher and purer luminary which describes a loftier course through a purer stratum-free from particulars, simple, universal; the Vedas contain a sensible account of God.'
(Quoted from Mother America, by Swami Omkar, O. 9)

'To love, to think, to do are in the Vedic conception, no transitory futilities touched with melancholy, but stimulations of the cosmic activity charged with the Joy of the Eternal. Shadows they are, cast dancing shadows by the Light of lights, that vision if the Eternal, shining through the temporal, humanity can find an ideal which would replace a periodical sanctimoniousness by a perpetual sense of the sanctity of all life. On that (Vedic) ideal alone, with its inclusiveness which absorbs and annihilates the causes of antagonisms, its sympathy which wins hatred away from itself, it is possible to rear a new earth in the image and likeness of the eternal Heavens.'
(Path of Peace by Dr. James Cousins, P. 60.)

 

'As far as I can grasp the teachings of the Vedas, it is so sublime that I would look upon it as a crime on my part, if the Russian public becomes acquainted with it through the medium of a confused and distorted translation, thus not deriving for its soul that benefit which this teaching should give to the people.'
(Quoted here from Sadhu T.L. Vaswani's Torch-bearer, P. 143)

 

'If a Bible of India were compiled, if Sanskrit could find a group of translators with the same feeling for beauty of language and the same love for the sacred texts in the original as the Bible has found in England, eternal treasures of old wisdom and poetry would enrich the times of to-day.

Among those compositions, some of them living words before writing was introduced, the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita would rise above the rest like Himalayas of the spirit of man.'
(The Himalayas of the Soul by J. Mascaro M.A., P. 151)

 

'It (Vedic Religion) recognizes but One God. It is a thoroughly scientific religion where religion and science meet hand in hand. Here theology is based upon science and philosophy.'
(The Superiority of the Vedic Religion by W.D. Brown)

 

'In the whole world, there is no study so beneficial and elevating as the Upanishad. It has been the solace of my life. It will be the solace at my death.'

'Vedic hymns greatly confirm us in the impression that the Aryan Moral code, as mirrored in the Rigveda, bore on the whole, a singularly pure and elevated character. So nothing can be more nobly beautiful in feeling and wording than the following on almsgiving or rather on the duty of giving, or helping generally.'
(Vedic India by Ragozin, P. 374)

 

'Astonishing fact! The Hindu Revelation (Veda) is all relavations the only one whose ideas are in perfect harmony with Modern Science, as it proclaims the slow and gradual formation of the world.'
(The Bible in India by Jacolliot, Vol II, Chapter 1)

 

'We have all heard and read about the ancient religion of India. It is the land of the great Veda-the most remarkable works containing not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which all the science has science has since proved true. Electricity, Radium, Electrons, Airships all seem to be known to the seers who found the Vedas.'
(Mrs. Wheeler Willox)