A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c6.22

c6.22

It is with the Veda, therefore, that Indian philology ought to begin if it is to follow a natural and historical course. So great an influence has the Vedic age (the historical period to which we are justified in referring the formation of the sacred texts) exercised upon all succeeding periods of Indian history, so closely is every branch of literature connected with Vedic traditions, so deeply have the religious and moral ideas of that primitive era taken root in the mind of the Indian nation, so minutely has almost every private and public act of Indian life been regulated by old traditionary precepts, that it is impossible to find the right point of view for judging of Indian religion, morals, and literature without a knowledge of the literary remains of the Vedic age. No one could fairly say that those men who first began to study Sanskrit, now seventy years ago, ought to have begun with reading the Veda. The difficulties connected with the study of the Veda would have made such a course utterly impossible and useless. But since the combined labours of Sanskrit scholars have now rendered the study of that language of more easy access, since the terminology of Indian grammarians and commentators, which not long ago was considered unintelligible, has become more familiar to us, and manuscripts can be more readily procured at the principal public libraries of Europe, Sanskrit philology has no longer an excuse for ignoring the Vedic age.