Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c10.26

c10.26

Kings performed sacrifices through their own priests, but invoked the aid of celebrated rishis also on special occasions as various stories show. Both the first and second classes appear to have composed the Rigvedic hymns, but the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads were the product of the meditations and speculations of the first class. These men lived away from the world, immersed in spiritual problems and in close relation to the influences of Nature. Their religious rites, meditations and questionings were deeply and continuously concerned with the divine; the gods were very real to them. Mythology therefore was not an abstract subject, but as real to them as Nature. On the other hand, kings and political life belonged to a sphere with which they had nothing to do and of which they knew little or nothing personally; and political vicissitudes did not affect them. All that they knew of such matters was what penetrated into their seclusion through popular report and tale, mere hearsay, often less real to them than mythology and of far less importance. There was no vivid distinction between history and mythology, and naturally there was a constant tendency to confuse the two, to mythologize history and give mythology an historical garb. We can thus see why there was a total lack of the historical sense among the brahmans who composed the brahmanical literature. It is of course authoritative on the religious matters of which it treats, but one cannot extend its authority to secular matters.