The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c5.5

c5.5

But before I proceed to state my views, it may be useful to briefly examine the methods by which Oriental scholars have hitherto attempted to solve the question as to the age and character of the Vedas. Prof. Max Müller divides the Vedic literature into four periods—the Chhandas, Mantra, Brâhmaṇa, and Sûtra; and as each period presupposes the preceding, while the last or the Sûtra period is prior, "if not to the origin, at least to the spreading and political ascendancy of Buddhism" in the fourth century before Christ, that learned scholar, by assigning two hundred years for each period arrives at about 1200 B. C., as the *latest date*, at which we may suppose the Vedic hymns to have been composed.[*] This, for convenience, may be called the literary or the linguistic method of ascertaining the age of the Vedas. A little consideration will, however, at once disclose the weak points in such arbitrary calculations. There are different opinions as to the division of the Vedic literature; some scholars holding that the Chhandas and Mantra is one period, though a long one. But granting that the Vedic literature admits of a four-fold division, the question of the duration of each period is still involved in uncertainty and, considering the fact that each period might run into and overlap the other to a certain extent, it becomes extremely difficult to assign even the minimum chronological limits to the different periods. The method may, indeed, be used with advantage to show that the Vedas could not have been composed later than a certain period; but it helps little in even approximately fixing the correct age of the Vedas. Prof. Max Müller himself admits* that the limit of 200 years can be assigned to each period only under the supposition that during the early periods of history the growth of the human mind was more luxuriant than in later times; while the late Dr. Haug, following the same method, fixed the very commencement of the Vedic literature between 2400—2000 B. C.,† by assigning about 500 years to each period, on the analogy of similar periods in the Chinese literature. It is therefore evident that this method of calculation, howsoever valuable it may be in checking the results arrived at by other methods, is, when taken by itself, most vague and uncertain. A further study of the different periods of the Vedic literature and its comparison with other ancient literatures might hereafter help us to ascertain the duration of each period a little more accurately.* But I think we cannot expect, by this method alone, to be ever in a position to fix with any approach to certainty the correct age of the Vedas. Prof. Max Müller considers 200 years to be the minimum duration of each period, while Dr. Haug and Prof. Wilson thought that a period of 500 years was not too long for the purpose ;† and I believe there is hardly any inherent improbability if a third scholar proposes to extend the duration of each of these periods up to something like 1000 years. In the face of this uncertainty we must try to find out other means for ascertaining the correct age of the Vedas.