"...The origins of this (Hinduism) and many other religions that abound in India are not quite known to us, and even the Orientalists and the students of religions are not in complete accord about the results of their investigations in that field. The Bahá'í writings also do not refer specifically to any of these forms of religion current in India. So, the Guardian feels it impossible to give you any definite and detailed information on that subject. He would urge you, however, to carry on your studies in that field, although its immensity is well-nigh bewildering, with the view of bringing the Message to the Hindus...."
From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi: Dawn of a New Day, p. 198
Baha'u'llah knew very less about Hinduism. Whatever little he knew was due to these reasons as Juan Cole writes:
ReplyDeleteA substantial literature on Hinduism existed in Arabic and Persian, especially the latter given that Persian was the primary literary and governmental language of Muslim-ruled India between the thirteenth and the nineteenth centuries, and continued to be vital in the subcontinent during Baha'u'llah's own lifetime. The great medieval Iranian savant Abu Rayhan Biruni (973- 1048) authored, around A.D. 1030, a wideranging description of Hinduism that became a classic. Medieval and early modern Muslim political ascendancy in North India led to a vast amount of translation from Sanskrit sources into Persian, the language of the bureaucracy and of most Indo-Muslim learning. Indeed, given the very large number of Hindu scribes and others fluent in Persian during this period, and the much smaller number of learned Brahmins with mastery of Sanskrit, it is likely that the majority of literate North Indian Hindus themselves read their holy books in Persian during Mughal times (1525-1803).