The Arctic Home in the Vedas c4.7.2

c4.7.2

But there are passages, which, in spite of their simple diction, are quite unintelligible on any of these theories, and in such cases Native scholars, like Sâyaṇa, are either content with simply paraphrasing the words, or have recourse to distortion of words and phrases in order to make the passages yield a sense intelligible to them; while some of the Western scholars are apt to regard such texts as corrupt or imperfect. In either case, however, it is an undoubted fact that some Vedic texts are yet unintelligible, and, therefore, untranslatable. Prof. Max Muller was fully alive to these difficulties. "A translation of the Rig-Veda," he observes in his introduction to the translation of the Vedic hymns in the Sacred Books of the East series, "is a task for the next century,"¹ and the only duty of the present scholars is to "reduce the untranslatable portion to a narrower and narrower limit," as has been done by Yâska and other Native scholars. But if the scientific discoveries of the last century have thrown a new light on the history and culture of man in primitive times, we may as well expect to find in them a new key to the interpretation of the Vedic myths and passages, which admittedly preserve for us the oldest beliefs of the Aryan race.