Age of Vedas

No one knows how old the Vedas are.

HMV had once published a pamphlet giving the history of gramophone record. Gramophone was invented by Thomas Alva Edison in the 19th century.

Edison, who had invented many other gadgets like electric light and the motion picture camera, had become a legend even in his own time.

When he invented the gramophone record, which could record human voice for posterity, he wanted to record the voice of an eminent scholar on his first piece.

For that he chose Prof. Max Muller of England, another great personality of the 19th century. He wrote to Max Muller saying, “I want to meet you and record your voice. When should I come?”Max Muller who had great respect for Edison asked him to come at a suitable time when most of the scholars of the Europe would be gathering in England. Accordingly Edison took a ship and went to England.

He was introduced to the audience. All cheered Edison’s presence.

Later at the request of Edison Max Muller came on the stage and spoke in front of the instrument. Then Edison went back to his laboratory and by afternoon came back with a disc. He played the gramophone disc from his instrument.

The audience was thrilled to hear the voice of Max Muller from the instrument. They were glad that voices of great persons like Max Muller could be stored for the benefit of future generations.

After several rounds of applause and congratulations to Thomas Alva Edison, Max Muller came to the stage and addressed the scholars and asked them, “You heard my original voice in the morning. Then you heard the same voice coming out from this instrument in the afternoon. Do you understand what I said in the morning or what you heard in the afternoon?”The audience fell silent because they could not understand the language in which Max Muller had spoken. It was ‘Greek and Latin’ to them as they say.

But had it been Greek or Latin, they would have definitely understood because they were from various parts of Europe.

It was in a language which the European scholars had never heard. Max Muller then explained what he had spoken. He said that the language he spoke was Sanskrit and it was the first shloka of Rig Veda, which says “Agni Meele Purohitam.”

This was the first recorded public version on the gramophone plate.

Why did Max Muller choose this shloka? Addressing the audience he said, “Vedas are the oldest text of the human race. And Agni Meele Purohitam is the first verse of Rig Veda. In the most primordial time when the people of Europe were still jumping like Chimpanzees from tree to tree and branch to branch, when they did not know how to cover their bodies, but with fig leaves, did not know agriculture and lived by hunting and lived in caves; at that remote past, Indians had attained high civilization and they gave to the world universal philosophies in the form of the Vedas”.

According to Max Muller, Vedas are the oldest texts of the human race. The antiquity of the Vedas is appreciated by Max Muller and HMV. …

The HMV passage goes on to say that Max Muller asked Edison to play this passage once again.

This time when Agni Meele Purohitam was re-played, the entire audience stood up in silence as a mark of respect for the ancient Hindu sages; this time there were no claps, there was only a mark of respect.

(Swami Ranganathananda mentioned this while delivering the chairman’s benedictory address at a seminar held on December 15 and 16, 2000, at the Ramakrishna Institute of Culture, Kolkatta, India. The theme of the seminar was ‘Maxmuller and His Contemporaries’. All these can be seen in the book ‘Maxmuller and His Contemporaries’ by Swami Prabhavananda, The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkatta-700 029. India)

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