Fear of Infinity: Friedrich Schlegel's Indictment of Indian Philosophy inÜber die Sprache und die Weisheit der Indier

Abstract

Friedrich Schlegel's 1808 work,Über die Sprache und die Weisheit der Indier, has been widely credited as a major contribution to the field of linguistics, but also criticized for its supposed racial bias. This article argues that the aspect of the work that has had the most long‐term impact is its indictment of South Asian philosophy and religion, the negative repercussions of which were felt well into the twentieth‐century. After initially being a zealous champion of the ancient wisdom of Indian thought, by 1808, Schlegel harshly criticized South Asian religions as misguided precursors to the perfected system of Christianity. Schlegel's indictment is founded on his inability to reconcile aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism that concern issues of metaphysics and eschatology, but that have no true analogues in the Greco‐Latin or Christian traditions, for Schlegel suffers from a “fear of infinity.”