The Roots, Verb-forms, and Primary Derivatives of the Sanskrit Language c2.9

c2.9

Under 'Veda' (v.) are included only the indexed texts of the Rig-Veda, Sāma-Veda, and Atharva-Veda. In strictness, certain passages of the Atharva-Veda should have been excluded, as being in prose and Brāhmaṇa-like; and, what is of much more importance, the older and better part of the mantra-material in the various *samhitās* of the Yajur-Veda, in the Brāhmaṇas, and even in the Sūtras, is quite as good Veda as most of the Atharvan, some of it even as parts of the Rik. In the present condition of things, however, it did not seem to me practicable to draw the division-line otherwise than in the partly arbitrary way in which I have drawn it. When the mantra-material is collected from all places and compared (as it by all means ought soon to be), it will be possible to use the term 'Veda' in a more exact sense, both inclusively and exclusively — though between what is genuinely old and what is in an artificially antique style a definite separation will probably never admit of being made.