And it is true that the Aryans were praised in the nineteenth century by people whom one should not hesitate to call proto·Nazis, in spite of the ana… - Stefan Arvidsson
" "And it is true that the Aryans were praised in the nineteenth century by people whom one should not hesitate to call proto·Nazis, in spite of the anachronism. However, there were also some people who sang the same tune but whose political and religious ideas should not be characterized in this way. Michelet's. Quinefs. and Renan's struggle against "Semitic mentality~ and Judeo-Christian religiosity was a struggle against dogmatism. irrationalism, and conservatism, and for science. secular lawmaking, and education. Naturally, this does not mean that the work of these scholars does not contain prejudiced. one-sided. or historically false claims, nor is my analysis meant to question the fact that anti·Semitism was very widespread among all kinds of intellectuals in the nineteenth century, in France as well as in other Western lands. But it is misleading to label as anti·Semitic all Aryanist attacks on Judaism and Christianity that were made in the name of universalism and liberalism.
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About Stefan Arvidsson
Stefan Arvidsson (born 1968) is a Swedish historian who is Professor of the History of Religions at Stockholm University and Professor in the Study of Religions at Linnaeus University.
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Additional quotes by Stefan Arvidsson
The idealization of India was not, of course, about contemporary India, but rather an India that was given the epithet "classical," borrowed from classical antiquity—an India that could be glimpsed among ruins, old statues, Sanskrit manuscripts, and Brahmanic teachings. Jones is very clear on this point: "Nor can we reasonably doubt, how degenerate and abased so ever the Hindus may now appear, that in some early age they were splendid in arts and arms, happy in government, wise in legislation, and eminent in various knowledge." The ancient Indians appeared to Jones to be people related to the Greeks and Romans, who had been idealized by humanists since the Renaissance (Arvidsson 2006, p.23).
"An old worldview where Palestine and the Hebrews were the center of the world began to be challenged by a new one where the Indo-Europeans and their original home were seen as the creative center of the world, and ever since then India, Tibet, and the Himalayas have also assumed a special place in Western mythical geography as an alternative axis mundi to "Semitic" Jerusalem and Israel. 38
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When Schlegel imagined that knowledge about India could be used to improve the chaotic situation in Europe, he had to claim that the pantheistic view was not domestic, but had been introduced to India by foreign peoples. It is also significant for Schlegel's ideological turnaround that he refrains from discussing the quietistic Upani- shads in Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. Instead, he argues that what is genuinely original and valuable in the Indian religion is ethics and law, and that the foremost document of Indian literature is the Laws of Manu. 39
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