Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c4.1

c4.1

THE Rigveda is not a book, but a library and a literature. Before its contents can be appreciated, it is necessary that they should be methodically arranged. We cannot determine with any exactness by external evidence the date, the locality, or the personality of the authors: we are therefore thrown back upon the poems themselves for our knowledge on these points; and the internal evidence lends itself most readily to an enquiry into the relative date of the different hymns.