A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s1.3

v1.c8.s1.3

The word "Veda" means "knowledge," then "the knowledge par excellence," *i.e.* "the sacred, the religious knowledge." It does not mean *one* single literary work, as for instance the word "Koran," nor a complete collection of a certain number of books, compiled at some particular time, as the word "Bible" (the "book par excellence"), or as the word "*Tipiṭaka*," the "Bible" of the Buddhists, but a whole great literature, which arose in the course of many centuries, and through centuries has been handed down from generation to generation by verbal transmission, till finally it was declared by a younger generation—but even then at some prehistoric period—to be "sacred knowledge," "divine revelation," as much on account of its great age, as on account of its contents. It is here not a matter of a "Canon" which might have been fixed at some council; the belief in the "sacredness" of this literature arose, as it were, spontaneously, and was seldom seriously disputed.