This paper takes off from where Rizal’s “The Philippines Within A Hundred Years” (1890) ended— in that stirring evocation of our future: “And free once more, [Filipinos] will discover their good old qualities … and again become lovers of peace, jovial, cheerful, smiling, hospitable, and fearless.” What are those antiguas buenas calidades, and where and how do we find them? The key lies in Rizal’s unfinished translation of “Die Malaien” (The Malays), written by the great German ethnologist Theodor Waitz. The ten pages that Rizal translated into Spanish lead us to Wilhelm von Humboldt’s magnum opus, Über die Kawi-Sprache (On the Kawi Language). Humboldt points to a world that Rizal (and Filipino scholars after him) had failed to explore—our pre Sanskrit heritage. And so, it remains buried deep in the past—a treasure waiting to be excavated and brought to life.