A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c6.11

c6.11

Herder, in other respects an excellent judge of ancient national poetry, committed himself to some extraordinary remarks on Indian literature. In his criticism on Śakuntala, written in the form of letters to a friend, he says: "Do you not wish with me, that instead of these endless religious books of the Vedas, Upavedas, and Upangas, they would give us the more useful and more agreeable works of the Indians, and especially their best poetry of every kind? It is here the mind and character of a nation is best brought to life before us, and I gladly admit, that I have received a truer and more real notion of the manner of thinking among the ancient Indians from this one Śakuntala, than from all their Upnekats and Bagavedams."¹ The fact is that at that time Herder's view on the endless religious books of the Vedas, could only have been formed from a wretched translation of the Bagavedam, as he calls it, — that is, the Bhâgavatapurâṇa, — a Sanskrit work composed as many centuries after as the Vedas were before Christ; or from the Ezour-vedam, a very coarse forgery, if, indeed, it was intended as such, written, as it appears, by a native servant, for the use of the famous Jesuit missionary in India, Roberto de Nobilibus.²