A History of Sanskrit Literature c6.15

c6.15

The comparison of the various readings supplied by the later Vedas leads to the conclusion that the text of the *Rigveda* existed, with comparatively few exceptions, in its present form, and not in a possibly different recension, at the time when the text of the *Sāma-veda*, the oldest form of the *Yajur-veda*, and the *Atharva-veda* was constituted. The number of cases is infinitesimal in which the *Rigveda* shows a corruption from which the others are free. Thus it appears that the kernel of Vedic tradition, as represented by the *Rigveda*, has come down to us, with a high degree of fixity and remarkable care for verbal integrity, from a period which can hardly be less remote than 1000 B.C.