Christian Lassen

"In spite of his copious studies on the Mahābhārata, however, Lassen’s work was not especially innovative: once laid down, his basic views on the epic remained unchanged for nearly a quarter century. Later studies amplified and provided additional “ethnographic” evidence for views he had already articulated in his 1837 article, but they did not in any way question or otherwise critically illuminate the basis for these views. Regardless, Lassen’s pedantic, self-assured tone and the confidence with which he put forth speculative assertions about ancient India as established fact greatly impressed a generation of scholars. Albrecht Weber, Theodor Goldstücker, and Adolf Holtzmann Jr. all accepted his reconstructions of ancient Indian history and ethnography."

"There is little doubt that Lassen was one of the foremost theoreticians of race of the nineteenth century, responsible in large part for supplying the “historical” data that led to the creation of the “Āryan” race concept. This makes the present-day enthusiasm for him even more puzzling."

"The key role played by Lassen in the development of modern ideas of race is not a matter of dispute, but what is less often noted is the central role the Mahābhārata played in his reconstructions of ancient Indian history. If the racism of Gobineau is unimaginable without Lassen’s researches, it is equally true that Lassen’s researches are unimaginable without the Mahābhārata."

"The comprehensive picture of ancient Indian civilization that he was able to give meant that the Indians were now finally and "fully accepted" into the circle of ancient cultural peoples that were significant for the history of mankind and, as such, could be included in historical comparisons. The expansion of the historical-geographical horizon that Lassen's four volumes made possible was a very important step in the process of overcoming the old biblical view of history - after all, just twenty years earlier, like for Peter von Bohlen in his History of the Ancient World, only the old biblically relevant cultures of Egypt, Israel, Persia, Greece and Rome had been considered the roots of human culture."

"It was already in the middle of the former century that Christian Lassen qualified the opposition of arya and dasyu or dasa as a contrast between different religions expressed by the age-old symbolism of black opposed to white and not as a contrast of darkcomplexioned to white coloured men."

"Of Christian Lassen, it was said as early as 1890 [Oldenberg 1890:27] that “the sagacity of philological thought is wanting in him”. Need we say more?"

"The result of this inquiry, which is presented here, is that Arja in part in itself, in part in forms derived from it, is proven to be the ancient, indigenous, honorable designation of the Iranian peoples and lands in its widest extension, as it also [designates] the three higher Indian casts and the Brahmanical constitution and the Sanskrit rhetoric of the Indian lands. It shows us the sense in which we are to differentiate the Aryan Indians from the rest. For the name seems not to apply to other peoples of the Indogerman family.’"