A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c11.211.3

c11.211.3

As to myself, I can truly say that nothing would be to me a more welcome discovery, nothing would remove so many doubts and difficulties, as some suggestion as to the manner in which certain of the Vedic hymns could have been added to the original collection during the Brâhmaṇa or Sûtra periods, or, if possible, by the writers of our MSS., of which most are not older than the 15th century. But these MSS., though so modern, are checked by the Anukramaṇîs. Every hymn which stands in our MSS. is counted in the Index of Śaunaka, who is anterior to the invasion of Alexander. The Sûtras, belonging to the same period as Śaunaka, prove the previous existence of every chapter of the Brâhmaṇas: and I doubt whether there is a single hymn in the Sanhitâ of the Rig-veda which could not be checked by some passage of the Brâhmaṇas and Sûtras. The chronological limits assigned to the Sûtra and Brâhmaṇa periods will seem to most Sanskrit scholars too narrow rather than too wide, and if we assign but 200 years to the Mantra period, from 800 to 1000 B.C., and an equal number to the Chhandas period, from 1000 to 1200 B.C., we can do so only under the supposition that during the early periods of history the growth of the human mind was more luxuriant than in later times, and that the layers of thought were formed less slowly in the primary than in the tertiary ages of the world.