A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c6.23

c6.23

It might be inferred from the very variety of subjects upon which, as has been just observed, the Veda is quoted as the last and highest authority, that by Veda must be understood something more than a single work. It would be, indeed, much nearer the truth to take "Veda" as a collective name for the sacred literature of the Vedic age, which forms, so to speak, the background of the whole Indian world. Many of the works which belonged to that period of literature have been irrecoverably lost. With regard to many of them, though their existence cannot be doubted, it is even uncertain whether they were ever committed to writing. A large number, however, of Vedic works does still exist; and it will require many years before they can be edited together with their commentaries. Till then it will be impossible to arrive at definite results on many questions connected with Vedic literature, and it would not be safe to take a comprehensive view of the whole Vedic age before all the sources have been exhausted from which its history and character can be studied. Nothing could be farther from the purpose of this historical essay than to attempt anything of this kind at present. What I have to offer are but Prolegomena to the Veda, or treatises on some preliminary questions connected with the history of the Vedic age. There are points which can be settled with complete certainty, though it may be impossible to bring, as yet, the whole weight of evidence to bear upon them; and the general question as to the authenticity, the antiquity, and the different periods of Vedic literature, ought to be answered even before beginning an edition of Vedic works. Again, there are many questions of special interest for Sanskrit literature, in which even now, with the materials that have been published, and with the help of manuscripts that are accessible in the public libraries of Europe, it is possible to arrive at certain results; while other points are such that even after the complete publication of all Vedic texts and commentaries, they will remain open to different views, and will necessarily become the subject of literary discussions. The principal object of the following essays will be to put the antiquity of the Veda in its proper light. By antiquity, however, is meant, not only the chronological distance of the Vedic age from our own, measured by the revolutions and the progress of the heavenly bodies, but also and still more, the distance between the intellectual, moral, and religious state of men as represented to us during the Vedic age, compared with that of other periods of history,—a distance which can only be measured by the revolutions and the progress of the human mind.