IMPRESSIONS OF AN OFFICER OF GERMAN GENERAL STAFF OF HIS TRAVELS IN INDIA 110 YEARS AGO (END)

PROLOGUE BECOMES EPILOGUE

Koenigsmarck has had four visits to India.he had earlier written on 'Japan & Japanese'.The authorised translation of the impressions of an officer of the German General Staff of his travels in India was done by Williams Oakler P.H.

The impressions are between 1900 & 1910.

To all Europeans India was a strange land.For them India was a land of Tigers, Elephants,Rajas & Maharajas ,Balls & Banquets ,& above all ,a great place to enjoy such hospitality & care -they could not even dream of in their land.

Rightly ,therefore , he says,

Quote - " The names of many friends whose hospitality I enjoyed & whose acquaintance I first made in India is,I am happy to believe,Legion.In these pages I have tried to express the sense of obligation I feel,and some recognition of the good-fellowship with which they welcomed me. Anglo-Indian hospitality will always furnish one of the happiest memories of my life.It was parting from these new-found friends that always made it hard for me to leave India,and on this  last occasion perhaps harder than ever before.To them I can only say by the mouth of their great national poet:

'If we do meet again,then we shall smile indeed;

If not,this parting was well made'." - Unquote.

Koenigsmarck should have known,that for an Indian:-

Vasudhev Kutumbakam.(The entire  world is one big Family)

Athithi Devo Bhavo.        ( Guest is like God)

Also, that the RIGVEDA is the oldest !

And,it was max Muller whose voice was the first human voice recorded by Thomas Edison on a record in 1877 in London.he chanted the first Shloka of Rig Veda " AGNI MEELE PUROHITAM" in Sanskrit.

Vedas are the oldest text of human race. India has given to the world universal philosophies in the form of Vedas when the rest of the world were cave dwellers & the people of Europe were jumping like Chimpanzees from one place to other to cover them-selves!



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