Book excerpt: A 13-point criticism of Max Müller’s “Matsya Sukta” by H.P. Blavatsky 1. How an Oxford Orientalist and chief defender of Hinduism makes fun of the First Avatara of Vishnu, for the sole purpose of amusing his friends. 2. Max Müller’s parody is clearly intended to corrupt the Vedas. 3. There is nothing more ridiculous than a self-proclaimed Rishi. 4. Though the Vedic Mantras are not creations of any existing being, Müller had the audacity to call his ludicrous poem a Sukta. 5. Bereft of Viniyoga, Müller’s grossly irreverent little poem serves no other purpose than insolent self-conceit. 6. And his poking infantine fun to deity cast an indelible stain on his legacy. 7. The great Vedic scholar of his day not only used the Vedic form of the Gayatri Metre in his poem, he also failed to mark his words with their proper accents. 8. Since, in every creation, the Vedas are revealed to the same men only, there is no room for new Rishis; and Müller, as his travesty of the first Avatara of Vishnu shows, is most unwise if not actually foolish. 9. His “Matsya Sukta” exposes an undistinguished scholarship in Sanskrit learning, and a marked deficiency in Sanskrit grammar. 10. The poem consists of eight lines only, but even in these few lines, passages from the Rigveda have been plagiarised. 11. For a Sanskrit poet nothing is more disreputable than to “borrow” passages from another’s works. 12. Lakshmi, the Hindu Venus-Aphrodite, is the goddess of wealth, not of happiness. 13. More! Neither the Rishis of modern nor of ancient times were acquainted even with the name of the fish. How then could it be praised by them?