Maria Graham

Maria Graham (née Dundas; 19 July 1785 – 21 November 1842), later Maria, Lady Callcott, was a British writer of travel books and children's books, and also an accomplished illustrator. Her observations of how earthquakes can change the land surface proved controversial, but correct.

Quotes

 * …perhaps I should be ashamed to own that I had so far strayed from good-nature and good-sense, as to forget, that whatever reproaches may be deserved by some of the Hindus for their moral practices the fundamental principles of morality itself are so firmly implanted in the soul of man that no vicious practice and no mistaken code can change their nature...
 * Graham, Maria, Letters on India, Longman, Hurst, etc., 1814.quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume IV Chapter2


 * Our missionaries are very apt to split upon this rock, and in order to place our religion in the brightest light, as if it wanted their feeble aid, they lay claim exclusively to all the sublime maxims of morality and tell those they wish to convert, that their own books contain nothing but abominations, the belief of which they must abandon in order to receive the purer doctrine of Christianity. Mistaken men! Mistaken men! Could they desire a better opening to their hopes than to find already established that morality which says, it is enjoined to man even at the moment of destruction to wish to benefit his foes, ‘as the sandal tree in the instant of its overthrow sheds perfume on the axe that fells it.’…
 * Graham, Maria, Letters on India, Longman, Hurst, etc., 1814.quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume IV Chapter2


 * In short, I consider morality like the sciences and arts, to be only slumbering not forgotten in India; and that to awaken the Hindus to a knowledge of the treasures in their own hands is the only thing wanting to set them fairly in the course of improvement with other nations.
 * Graham, Maria, Letters on India, Longman, Hurst, etc., 1814.quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume IV Chapter2


 * Everywhere in the ancient Hindu books we find the maxims of that pure and sound morality which is founded on the nature of man as a rational and social being….
 * Graham, Maria, Letters on India, Longman, Hurst, etc., 1814.quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume IV Chapter2


 * The Hindus claim the honour of having invented the method of teaching by apologues…
 * Graham, Maria, Letters on India, Longman, Hurst, etc., 1814.quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume IV Chapter2


 * A stranger in India will not fail to be struck with the indiscriminate respect which the lower classes of Hindus pay to the objects worshipped by all other sects. I have seen them making their little offerings, and joining the processions at the Mussulman feasts of Hassan and Hossein, and as frequently appearing at the doors of the Romish Portuguese chapels, with presents of candles to burn before the saints, and flowers to adorn the shrines; in short, whatever is regarded as holy by others, they approach with reverence, so much are uncultivated men the creatures of imitation and habit.
 * Graham, Maria, Letters on India, Longman, Hurst, etc., 1814.quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume IV Chapter2


 * Were all other monuments swept away from the face of Hindustan, were all its inhabitants destroyed, and its name forgotten, the existence of the Sanskrit language would prove that it once contained a race who had reached a high degree of refinement, and who must have been blessed with many rare advantages before such a language could have been formed and polished. Amidst the wreck of nations where it flourished, and superior to the havoc of war and conquest, it remains a venerable monument of the splendour of other times, as the solid Pyramid in the deserts of Egypt."
 * As Quoted and attributed in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture