A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c6.198

c6.198

If the age of Manu or of the epic poems could be fixed, so as to exclude all possible doubt, our task with regard to the age of the Veda would be an easy one. The Veda is demonstrably earlier than the epic poetry and the legal codes of India. We do not, however, advance one step by saying that the Veda is older than the author of the Mânava-dharma-śâstra, whose date is altogether unknown, or even than the Mahâbhârata, if it can be doubted whether that poem in its first elements be anterior to the Buddhistic religion or not; while it is said, at the same time, that the last elements which have been incorporated into this huge work allude to historical events later than the Christian era.¹ Here, then, we must adopt a new course of procedure. We must try to fix the age of the Veda, which forms the natural basis of Indian history; and we must derive our knowledge of the Vedic age from none but Vedic works, discarding altogether such additional evidence as might be obtained from the later literature of India. Let some Vedic dates be once established, and it will probably be possible to draw lines of connection between the Vedic and the rest of the Indian literature. But the world of the Veda is a world by itself; and its relation to all the other Sanskrit literature is such, that the Veda ought not to receive but ought to throw light over the whole historical development of the Indian mind.