The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c6.1

v1.c6.1

[ 1 ] Neither Gaṇeśa, the Hindu patron of wisdom, nor Sarasvatī, the goddess of learning, seems ever to have paid any encouragement to history, and as a consequence, Indian literature is almost void of all authentic historical records. Twice ten thousand volumes¹ even now attest the literary activity of the Indian votaries of those divinities, and almost every branch of ancient learning has had its earnest and most devoted cultivators. Nor are the works we allude to, bearing in mind their age, in any way wanting in value as monuments of antiquity, profound erudition, and superior intelligence. In antiquity the *Saṃhitā* of the *Ṛgveda*, as the earliest record of the Aryan race extant, holds a higher rank than even the oldest writings of the Jewish race. In general excellence, the *Rāmāyaṇa* yields not the palm of superiority to the *Iliad* of Homer. And in depth of knowledge and subtlety of argument the Darśanas of India bear no unfavourable comparison to those of the greatest philosophers of ancient Greece.² The Grammar of Pāṇini stands unrivalled and unique in its own line; and in astronomy, mathematics logic and rhetoric, in romance and legends, in law and civil polity, in medicine, music and dramatic composition, there is an extent of ancient literature still existing, the like of which can nowhere be met with, except perhaps in Rome and China.³ Yet India never produced a Xenophon or a Thucydides, and her heroes and their mighty exploits, her greatness and her early civilization, where they live, live but in song.