No authority could have been strong enough to persuade the Grecian army [of Alexander] that their gods and their hero-ancestors were the same as thos… - Friedrich Max Müller

It is surely astounding that such a system as the Vedanta should have slowly been elaborated by the indefatigable and intrepid thinkers of India thousands of years ago, a system that even now makes us feel giddy as in mounting the last steps of the swaying spire of a Gothic cathedral. None of our philosophers, including Heraclitus, Plato, Kant or Hegel, has ventured to erect such a spire, never frightened by storms or lightning. Stone follows on stone in regular succession after once the first step has been made, after once it has been clearly seen that in the beginning there can have been One, as there will be but One in the end, whether we call it Atman or Brahman.

जीवन के अत्यन्त गम्भीर क्षण होते हैं। इस क्षण में मानवता के पुराने आसान सवाल हमारे पास अपनी पूरी गहराई के साथ लौटते हैं, और हम खुद से पूछते हैं कि हम क्या हैं? पृथ्वी में यह जीवन क्यों बना है? क्या हमें यहाँ कोई विश्राम नहीं करना है और सदैव परिश्रम करते रहना है और अपने पड़ोसियों के सुख के अवशेषों पर अपने खुद के सुख का निर्माण करते रहना है? और जब हमने पृथ्वी पर अपना घर बना लिया है, जो भाप, गैस और बिजली से जितना सुविधाजनक बना सकते थे, बना लिया है तब भी हम क्या उस हिन्दू से ज्यादा सुखी हैं जो अपने आदिम घर में रहता है?

There was a time when the ancestors of the Celts. the Germans, the Slavonians. the Greeks and Italians, the Persians and the Hindus. were living together beneath the same roof. separate from the ancestors of the Semitic and Turanian races.... The Aryan nations who pursued a north- westerly direction, stand before us in history as the principal nations of north*western Asia and Europe. They have been the prominent actors in the great drama of history, and have carried to their fullest growth all the elements of active life with which our nature is endowed. They have perfected society and morals, and we learn from their literature. and works of art the element of science, the laws of art, and the principles of philosophy. In continual struggle with each other and with Semitic and Turanian races, these Aryan nations have become the rulers of history. and it seems to be their mission to link all parts of the world together by the chains of civilisation. commerce, and religion. ... But while most of the members of the Aryan family followed this glorious path. the southern tribes were slowly migrating toward the mountains which gird the north of India.... Left to themselves in a world of their own, without a past, and without a future before them, they had nothing but themselves to ponder on. Struggles there must have been in India also. Old dynasties were destroyed. whole f.uni.lies annihilated. and new empires founded. Yet the inward life of the Hindu was not changed by these convulsions. His mind was like the lotus leaf arter a shower of rain has passed over it; its character remained the same, passive, meditative, quiet, and thoughtful.