The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c5.16.3

c5.16.3

Where the Sanhitâs and the Brâhmaṇas directly speak of the actual state of things in their time, there is, of course, no ground to disbelieve the same, but I think that even the traditions recorded in these works are more reliable than those in later works, for the simple reason that those traditions are there found in their purest form. Later works may indeed be used to supply confirmatory evidence, where such is available; but our conclusions must in the main be based on the internal evidence supplied by the Vedic works alone. Several Indian astronomers have worked more or less on the lines here indicated, but their labours in this direction have not unfortunately received the attention they deserve. The late Kṛiṣhṇa Shàstri Goḍbole published his views on the antiquity of the Vedas in the second and third Volumes of the *Theosophist*,* and though he has failed to correctly interpret some astronomical allusions in the Vedic works, yet there is much that is suggestive and valuable in his essay. The late Prof. K. L. Chhatre also appears to have held similar views on the subject, but he has not published them, so far as I know, in a systematic form. My friend Mr. Shankara Bâlkṛiṣhṇa Dikshit, who has written a prize essay in Marâṭhî on the history of Hindu Astronomy, and who has succeeded in correctly interpreting more verses in the Vedâṅga Jyotiṣhat than any other scholar has hitherto done, has also discussed this question in his essay, which I was allowed to read in MS.