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A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s13: The Age of the Veda

A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s13

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English

Contents

The Age of the Veda

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We have traced the whole of Vedic literature to its latest off-shoots and stragglers, and can now no longer evade the question of the age of the whole of this great literature. If it were possible to determine, even within a few centuries, the period into which the oldest hymns of the Ṛgveda and of the Atharvaveda reach back, then it were unnecessary to devote a special chapter to this question. It would suffice to give, in a few words, the approximate age of the Veda. Unfortunately, however, it is a fact, and a fact which it is truly painful to have to admit, that the opinions of the best scholars differ, not to the extent of centuries, but to the extent of thousands of years, with regard to the age of the Ṛgveda. Some lay down the year 1000 B.C. as the earliest limit for the Ṛgvedic hymns, while others consider them to have originated between 3000 and 2500 B.C. In view of the *very great* divergence in the opinions of the specialists, it is not enough, even in a book intended for the general reader, merely to give some approximate date, for even the general reader must have an idea of the circumstances supporting the various opinions on the greater or lesser antiquity of the Veda. This is the more necessary, as the question of the period of the oldest Indian literature coincides with the question of the beginning of the Indo-Aryan civilization, a question which is of the utmost importance to every historian, archæologist and philologist. If, indeed, it is at all possible to determine the periods of the development of Indo-Aryan culture, and, going still further back, those of Indo-European culture, it can only be done hand in hand with investigation as to the period of the earliest monuments of Aryan culture in India.

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Under these circumstances, then, it seems to me absolutely necessary to render account of the whole question to the non-specialist also, and, as far as possible, to state the limits and the reasons both of our ignorance and of our knowledge.

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On first becoming acquainted with Indian literature, people were inclined to ascribe tremendous antiquity to all Indian literary works. Did not Friedrich Schlegel expect from India nothing less than "enlightenment upon the history of the primitive world, so dark until now"? ¹ As late as in 1852 A. Weber wrote in his "History of Indian Literature": "The literature of India passes generally for the most ancient literature of which we possess written records, and justly so," and it was only in 1876 in his second edition that he added: "In so far as this claim may not now be disputed by the Egyptian monumental records and papyrus rolls, or even by the Assyrian literature which has but recently been brought to light." The reasons for which, according to Weber, "we are fully justified in regarding the literature of India as the most ancient literature of which written records on an extensive scale have been handed down to us" are in part geographical, in part pertain to the history of religion. In the older parts of the Ṛgveda the Indian nation appears to us to be settled in the Punjab. The gradual spread eastwards across Hindustan towards the Ganges can be traced in the later portions of Vedic literature. The Great Epics then further show us the spread of Brahmanism towards the south. Centuries must have elapsed before such an enormous stretch of land, "inhabited by wild and vigorous tribes," could become brahmanized. Many centuries too, must have been required for the religious development from the simple nature worship of the Ṛgvedic hymns up to the theosophical-philosophical speculations of the Upaniṣads, and again to such phases of mythology and cult as Megasthenes, about 300 B.C., found prevalent in India. Weber did not attempt a more exact determination of the Vedic period; in fact, he expressly declares any such attempt to be entirely futile.[^1)

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¹ *Cf.* above, p. 14.

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The first, however, to make this attempt and to endeavour to construct a kind of chronology of the oldest Indian literature, was Max Müller in his "History of Ancient Sanskrit literature" which appeared in 1859. Starting from the few definite clues to Indian chronology which we possess, the invasion of Alexander and the appearance of Buddhism,[^2) he argued further as follows. Buddhism is nothing but a reaction against Brahmanism, and it presupposes the existence of the whole Veda, *i.e.* the literature consisting of the hymns, the Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads. The whole of this literature must therefore be *pre-Buddhist*, *i.e.* it must have originated before 500 B.C. The Vedāṅga or Sūtra literature might be approximately synchronous with the origin and the first spread of Buddhism. Now the origin of these Sūtra works, whose character is such that they necessarily pre-suppose the Brāhmaṇa literature, falls approximately into the period from 600 to 200 B.C. (It is at the fixing on these purely arbitrary dates that the untenable part of Max Müller's calculations begins.) The Brāhmaṇas, however, of which there are earlier and later ones, and which contain long lists of teachers, handed down by earlier Brāhmaṇas, cannot possibly be accommodated in less than 200 years. Therefore, argues Max Müller, we shall have to accept the period from 800 to 600 B. C. as the period of the origin of these prose works. The Brāhmaṇas, however, for their part, again pre-suppose the Vedic Saṃhitās. But the composition of all these collections of songs and prayers would take at least 200 years; hence the interval from roughly 1000 to 800 B. C. might be regarded as the

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[^1): Weber, HIL., pp. 2 ff., 6 f. [^2): Cf. above, pp. 27 f.

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period in which these collections were arranged. However, before the compilation of these collections, which were already regarded as sacred sacrificial poetry and authorised prayer-books, there must have been a period at which the songs and chants contained in them arose as popular or religious poems. This period, Max Müller concluded, must have been before 1000 B. C. And as he had already assumed 200 years for the "Brāhmaṇa period" and 200 years for the period he called the "Mantra period," he now also assumed 200 years for the *arising* of this poetry (though without laying much stress on this figure), and thus arrived at 1200 to 1000 B. C. as the period of the beginning of Vedic poetry.

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Now it is clear that the supposition of 200 years for each of the different literary epochs in the origin of the Veda is purely arbitrary. Even Max Müller himself did not really wish to say more than that such an interval *at least* must be assumed, and that in 1000 B. C. *at the latest*, our Ṛgveda-Saṃhitā must already have been completed. He always considered his date of 1200-1000 B. C. only as a *terminus ad quem*, and in his Gifford Lectures on "Physical Religion" in 1889,¹ he expressly states "that we cannot hope to fix a *terminus a quo*. Whether the Vedic hymns were composed 1000, or 1500, or 2000, or 3000 years B. C., no power on earth will ever determine." It is remarkable, however, how strong the power of suggestion is even in science. Max Müller's hypothetical and really purely arbitrary determination of the Vedic epochs in the course of years, received more and more the dignity and the character of a scientifically proved fact, without any new arguments or actual proofs having been added. It became a habit, a habit already censured by W. D. Whitney,² to say that Max Müller had proved 1200-1000 B. C. as the date of the Ṛgveda. It was only timidly that a few scholars like L. von Schroeder¹ ventured to go as far back as 1500 or even 2000 B. C. And when, all at once, H. Jacobi attempted to date Vedic literature back to the third millenary B. C. on the grounds of astronomical calculations, scholars raised a great outcry at such heretical procedure, and even to-day most of the Western scholars shake their heads wondering how Jacobi could venture to assert so exaggerated an opinion on the age of the Veda. Strange to say, it has been quite forgotten on what a precarious footing stood the "opinion prevailing hitherto," which was so zealously defended.

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¹ Published, London, 1901, p. 91.

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² Oriental and Linguistic Studies, First Series, New York, 1872, p. 78.

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¹ Indiens Literatur und Kultur, pp. 291 f.

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The idea of drawing conclusions on the chronology of the earliest Indian literature with the assistance of *astronomical* data, is no new one. A. Ludwig already undertook an attempt of this nature on the basis of the eclipses of the sun.² The priests of ancient India, who had to determine the times of sacrifice, were, like the pontifices in ancient Rome, at the same time almanac-makers. They had to observe the firmament, in order to regulate and predetermine the times of sacrifice. Hence we find numerous astronomical and calendar data in the Brāhmaṇas and Sūtras. In these, the so-called Nakṣatras or "lunar mansions" play a particularly prominent part. The ancient Indians had observed that the moon requires about 27 days and nights for its siderial orbit and stays in a different constellation every night of the sidereal month. These stars or constellations, which all lie not far distant from the ecliptic, were combined into a kind of zodiac, a succession of 27 Nakṣatras embracing the spheres, and this lunar zodiac was employed for the purpose of estimating the position of the moon at a particular time.³

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² Über die Erwähnung von Sonnenfinsternissen im Rigveda. (Sitzungsberichte der Königl. böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Prag, 1885.

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³ The lunar zodiac has been preserved in India down to the present day, side by side with the solar zodiac, which was probably not introduced into India until the first century A.D. with the doctrines of the Greek astronomers. The problem of the origin of this lunar zodiac, and of the relationship between the Indian Nakṣatras and the Menāzil of the Arabs and the Sieou of the Chinese has not been solved even now. See especially A. *Weber*, Die vedischen Nachrichten von den Naxatra, 1, 2, ABA 1860, 1862; G. *Thibaut*, Astronomie (Grundriss III, 9), pp. 12 ff.; H. *Oldenberg*, Nakṣatra und sieou, NGGW 1909, 544 ff. *Macdonell* and *Keith*, Vedic Index, I, 427 ff., plead for Babylonian origin, which F. *Hommel* (ZDMG 45, 1891, 592 ff.) has tried to prove; but see B. V. Kameśvara *Aiyar*, Ind. Ant. 48. 1919, 95 ff.

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Thus there are many passages in Vedic literature in which it is said that a sacrificial act is to take place "under such and such a Nakṣatra," *i.e.* "when the moon stands in conjunction with this Nakṣatra." There are still more numerous passages in which the Nakṣatras are brought into definite relationship with the full moon and new moon. And already in the earlier literature there often appear only twelve of the 27 Nakṣatras connected with the full moon, from which may be traced the names of the months derived from the twelve Nakṣatras. These month-names were originally used only for lunar months, but were later extended also to the twelve divisions of the solar year. But as already in Vedic times attempts had been made to bring the solar and lunar year into accord by some means or another, the question arises whether, out of the combination of certain full-moon Nakṣatras with the seasons of the year and the commencement of the year, conclusions may not be drawn as to the period in which the respective calendar data originate. Such conclusions, which led to surprising results, were attempted in the year 1893, simultaneously and independently of each other, by H.

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Jacobi in Bonn and the Indian scholar Bál Gangádhar Tilak in Bombay.¹ Both scholars by different ways arrived at the opinion that at the period of the Brāhmaṇas the Pleiades (Kṛttikās), which at that time formed the starting-point of the Nakṣatra series, coincided with the vernal equinox, but that in the Vedic texts there are also to be found traces of an older calendar, in which the vernal equinox fell in Orion (*Mṛgaśiras*). From the calculation of the value of the precession, however, it appears that about 2500 B. C. the vernal equinox lay in the Pleiades and about 4500 in Orion. But while Tilak goes so far as to date some Vedic texts back to the year 6000 B. C., Jacobi contents himself with placing "the beginnings of the period of civilization, as the mature, perhaps even late production of which the songs of the Ṛgveda have come down to us," at about 4500 B. C. This period of civilization stretches, according to him, roughly from 4500-2500 B. C., and he is inclined to ascribe "the collection of hymns which has come down to us, to the second half of this period."¹ Jacobi was confirmed in this opinion by a second astronomical observation.

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The Gṛhyasūtras tell us of a marriage-custom in ancient India, according to which the bride and bridegroom, after they had arrived at their new home, had to sit silently on the hide of a bull, till the stars became visible, whereupon the bridegroom showed his bride the *Pole star*, called *dhruva*, "the constant one," and at the same time uttered a prayer, as for example, "Be constant, prospering in my house," whereto she replied: "Constant art thou, may I be constant in the house of my husband." This marriage-custom, in which a "constant" star figures as the symbol of unchangeable constancy, must have originated at a time in which a brighter star stood so near the celestial pole that it seemed, to the observers of that time, to be standing still. Now it is again a result of the precession that, with the gradual alteration of the celestial equator, its North Pole also moves away, describing in about 26,000 years a circle of 23½ degrees radius around the constant pole of the ecliptic. By this means, one star after another slowly moves towards the North Pole and becomes North Star or Pole Star; but only from time to time does a *brighter* star approach the Pole so closely, that it can, for all practical purposes, be regarded as "a constant one" (dhruva). At present Alpha, a star of the second magnitude, in the Little Bear, is the Pole Star of the Northern hemisphere.

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This star, of course, cannot be meant when the Pole Star is spoken of in Vedic times, because only 2000 years ago this star was still so far removed from the pole that it could not possibly have been designated as the "constant one." Not until 2780 B. C. do we meet with another Pole Star which merited this name. At that time Alpha Draconis stood so near to the Pole for over 500 years that it must have appeared immovable to those who observed with the naked eye. We must, then, place the origin of the name of Dhruva, as well as the custom of showing the "constant" star to the bride on her marriage evening as the symbol of constancy, into a period in which Alpha Draconis was Pole Star, that is, in the first half of the third millenary B. C. In the marriage verses of the Ṛgveda, however, this custom is not yet thought of, wherefore Jacobi considers it probable "that the use of Dhruva in the marriage ceremony does not belong to the time of the Ṛgveda, but to the following period, and that, therefore, the Ṛgvedic period of civilization lies before the third millenary B. C."¹

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¹ A. *Ludwig*, Der Rigveda III, Prag 1878, pp. 183 ff. and R. G. *Bhandarkar*, Report, 1883-84, p. 39, have already pointed out the chronological significance of the Kṛttikās heading the list of the Nakṣatras in the Brāhmaṇas. But Bhandarkar places the Brāhmaṇas between 1200 and 900 B.C. Violent discussions were aroused by H. *Jacobi's* papers in "Festgruss an Rudolf von Roth," Stuttgart, 1893, pp. 68-73, in NGGW, 1894, pp. 105-116, and in OC X, Geneva 1894, I, pp. 103-108, and the book of B. G. *Tilak*, The Orion or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas, Bombay 1893. Cf. G Bühler, Ind. Ant. 23, 1894, pp. 238 ff.; W. D. Whitney in JAOS Proceedings, March 1894 (reprinted Ind. Ant. 24, 1895, pp. 361 ff.); G. Thibaut, Ind Ant. 24, pp. 85 ff.; and Astronomie (Grundriss III, 9) pp. 18 f.; A. Barth, JA 1894, pp. 156 ff.; Oeuvres II, 248 ff.; A. Weber, SBA 1894, pp. 775 ff.; H. Oldenberg in ZDMG 48, 1894, pp. 629 ff.; 49, pp. 470 ff.; 50, pp. 450 ff.; Jacobi in ZDMG 49, pp. 218 ff.; 50, pp. 69 ff.; E. W. Hopkins, The Religions of India, Boston 1895, pp. 4 ff.; A. A. Macdonell, History of Sanskrit Literature, London 1900, p. 12.

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¹ Festgruss an Roth, pp. 71 f.

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¹ ZDMG., Vol. 50, p. 71.

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As has been said, the assertions of Jacobi and Tilak met with violent opposition. The most serious objection to the argument about the *Pleiades* was that the Indians of the most ancient times were concerned only with the position of the Nakṣatras in relation to the moon and not to the sun, and that there is not a single trace of any observation of the equinoxes to be found in the most ancient times. The passage¹ in which we read that the Pleiades “do not swerve from the East” should probably not be interpreted as meaning that they rose “due east” (which would have been the case in the third millenary B. C., and would point to a knowledge of the vernal equinox): the correct interpretation is more likely that they remain visible in the eastern region for a considerable time—during several hours—every night, which was the case about 1100 B. C.² Coming to the argument of the *New Year* in various millenaries, it is most difficult to decide these questions, primarily because in our texts the year sometimes begins with spring, sometimes with winter, and sometimes with the rainy season, and moreover the number of seasons varies between three, five and six.³ The argument of the *Pole Star*, too, provoked serious objections. We cannot deny the possibility of one of the lesser stars in the Little Bear having been visible (about 1250 B. C. and even later still) as the Pole Star in the clear Indian firmament.¹ At any rate it is not permissible to draw any conclusion from the non-mention of this custom in the Ṛgveda: for by no means all of the marriage-customs are mentioned in the marriage hymn in the Ṛgveda, and there is no reason why this particular custom should have been singled out for mention in preference to another.

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¹ Śat.-Br. II, 1, 2, 3. See *Oldenberg* and *Jacobi*, ZDMG 48, p. 631 note; 50, pp. 72 and 452. Sankar B. *Dikshit* (Ind. Ant. 24, 1895, pp. 245 f.), B. V. *Kameśvara Aiyar* (The Age of the Brāhmaṇas, in the Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society 1922, and previously in Proc. FOC I, pp. 1 ff. and Dhirendranath *Mukhopadhyaya*, The Hindu Nakshatras, pp. 41 f. (Reprint from Vol. VI of the Journal of the Department of Science, Calcutta University, 1923), have concluded from this passage, that the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa was written about 3000 B. C.

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² I am indebted for this explanation to Professor *A. Prey*, the astronomer of our University, who informs me that, in about 1100 B. C. the Pleiades rose approximately 13° to the north of the east point, approaching nearer and nearer the east line, and crossing it as late as 2 h~11 m after their rise, at a height of 29°, when seen from a place situated at 25° North latitude. They thus remain almost due east long enough to serve as a convenient basis for orientation. This interpretation of the passage is proved to be the correct one, by Baudhāyana-Śrautasūtra 27, 5 (cf. *W. Caland*, Uber das rituelle Sūtra des Baudhāyana, Leipzig 1903, pp. 37 ff.), where it is prescribed that the supporting beams of a hut on the place of sacrifice shall face the east, and that this direction shall be fixed after the Pleiades appear, as the latter “do not depart from the eastern region.” It is true that, about 2100 B. C. or about 3100 B. C., the Pleiades touched the east line earlier, but they proceeded southwards so rapidly that they were not suitable for orientation.

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³ In the Śat.-Br. XII, 8,2,35, it is said: ‘All seasons are the first, all are the intermediate, all are the last.”

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¹ Professor Prey believes that Groombridge 2001 and 2029, stars of the fifth to the sixth magnitude in the Little Bear, the first of which approached the pole as far as 17, in about 1250 B. C., and the second of which approached the pole as far as 8′ in 1500 B. C., are easily visible in view of the favourable atmospheric conditions of India.

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Though the astronomical arguments of Tilak and Jacobi did not succeed in proving what was to be proved, they have stimulated the enquiry whether there are no other grounds for assuming a greater antiquity of Vedic culture. And indeed, from the point of view of Indian history, *nothing speaks against* the assumption that Vedic literature extends back into the third millenary, and ancient Indian culture to the fourth millenary, while the supposition of 1200 or even 1500 B. C., traceable to Max Müller, for the commencement of the Vedic period no longer agrees with the *present-day* state of our knowledge of the political history, as well as of the literary and religious history of ancient India. This has, I believe, been convincingly proved, especially by G. Bühler.²

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² Ind. Ant., 23, 1894, pp. 245 ff.

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Inscriptions prove that in the third century B. C. Southern India was conquered by the Aryan Indians and invaded by brahmanical culture. The fact, however, that some Vedic schools, such as those of Baudhāyana and Āpastamba, originated in the south of India, makes it probable that the conquest of the south by the Aryans must have taken place much earlier, perhaps as early as in the 7th or 8th century B. C. For the whole country can hardly have been colonised and brahmanized immediately after the conquest to such an extent that Vedic schools could originate in the distant south. But, as Bühler says,¹ "with the conquest of Southern India about 700 or even about 600 B. C., the assumption that the Indo-Aryans inhabited about 1200 or even about 1500 B. C. the northern corner of India and Eastern Afghanistan becomes absolutely impossible. The idea that the Indo-Aryan nation of the Vedic times, with its many clan-divisions and its perpetual internal feuds, should have conquered the 123,000 square miles, which form the area of India (excluding the Punjab, Assam and Burma) and should have founded States, organised on the same model, all over this vast territory within the space of five, six or even eight hundred years, appears simply ludicrous; especially if it is borne in mind that this territory was inhabited not merely by forest tribes, but in part by peoples possessing a civilisation not much inferior to that of the invaders. More than double of the longest period named was required for such achievements.

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¹ Ind. Ant. 23, 1894, p. 247.

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Now it could be said, and it has been said by Oldenberg, that seven hundred years are a good span of time, in which much can happen. "One should consider," says Oldenberg,² "what 400 years have meant for the enormous plains of Northern and Southern America." This, however, is a poor comparison. The races and civilizations which came into contact with one another in America were, after all, very different from those with which we have to deal in ancient India. As far as the political conditions of ancient India are concerned, we learn from some of the songs of the Ṛgveda and from the epics that, just as is shown by the later history of India, continuous fighting took place between the separate Aryan tribes in ancient and even the most ancient times. Under such circumstances the conquest of India could only proceed step by step, extremely slowly. Actually we see also, if we compare the two oldest strata of Indian literature with each other, that the advance of the Aryans towards the east and south proceeded only very slowly. In the hymns of the Ṛgveda we find the Indo-Aryan people still established exclusively in the extreme north-west of India, and in Eastern Afghanistan, and yet the period in which the hymns of the Ṛgveda originated, must have stretched over centuries. That is proved by the many different strata of earlier and later parts, which we find in these hymns; it is proved, too, by the circumstance that the Ṛṣis, who not only in the Anukramaṇīs, but already in the Brāhmaṇas, were *erroneously* called "seers" or composers of the hymns, are in the hymns themselves regarded as seers of a remote antiquity.¹ The composers of the hymns, too, very often speak of "*old* songs," of "songs composed after the *old* manner," as though this poetry had been practised since time immemorial.² M. Bloomfield³ has shown that, of the approximately 40,000 lines of the Ṛgveda, nearly as many as 5,000 lines are repetitions. This proves that, at the time when the Ṛgveda was composed, the more modern poets would frequently borrow lines and expressions from older ones, and that there was actually in existence a large number of floating lines of verse, which any singer could incorporate in his song if he so fancied. But we have repeatedly seen how far, after all, the Ṛgveda lies behind all other literary works of the Veda. Even the language of the hymns is much more archaic than that of the Vedic prose works. The religious views and the conditions of civilization are quite different. The Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads pre-suppose not only the hymns of the Ṛgveda, but also the spells and prayers of the other Saṃhitās as sacred texts of hoary age. Indeed, these old hymns and spells were often no longer understood. The old legends had fallen into oblivion. I will recall only the distance separating the Śunaḥśepa legend of the Aitareya-Brāhmaṇa from the hymns of the Ṛgveda.[^1)

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² ZDMG, Vol. 49, p. 479.

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¹ See above pp. 57 f.

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² See *Ludwig*, Der Rigveda, III, pp. 180 f.

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³ The Vedic Concordance, HOS, Vol. 10, 1906; Rig-Veda Repetitions, HOS, Vols. 20 and 24, 1916; JAOS 29, 1908, 287 f.; 31, 1910, 49 ff.

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Oral tradition, too, pre-supposes longer intervals of time than would be necessary, had these texts been written down. Generations of pupils and teachers must have passed away before all the existing and the many lost texts had taken definite shape in the Vedic schools.[^2) On linguistic, literary and cultural grounds we must therefore assume that many centuries elapsed between the period of the earliest hymns and the final compilation of the hymns into a Saṃhitā or "collection," for the Ṛgveda-Saṃhitā after all denotes only the *close* of a period long past,[^3) and again between the Ṛgveda-Saṃhitā and the other Saṃhitās and the Brāhmaṇas. The Brāhmaṇas themselves, with their numerous schools and branch schools, with their endless lists of teachers and the numerous references to teachers of antiquity, require a period of several centuries for their origin.[^4) This literature itself, as well as the spread of brahmanical culture, theological knowledge, and not least, the priestly supremacy which went hand in hand with it, must have taken centuries. And when we come to the Upaniṣads, we see that they, too, belong to different periods of time, that they, too, pre-suppose generations

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[^1): See above, p. 57, p. 60, pp. 62 ff., pp. 69 f., p. 75, pp. 79 f., p. 104, pp. 196 ff., pp. 215 f. [^2): The circumstance that the texts were written down when they were no longer completely understood and after a gap had occurred in the tradition, also explains the fact that so frequently passages of diverse contents and different periods occur in all Vedic texts, so that, for instance, some Upaniṣads are to be found among the Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas. See above pp. 124, 149 ff., 226. [^3): The Aitareya-Āraṇyaka already pre-supposed the Ṛgveda Saṃhitā in its division into ten books. (Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, pp. 340 f.) [^4): See above, pp. 194 of teachers and a long tradition.¹ Yet we see that, during the whole of this time, which lasted from the first beginnings till the last off-shoots of Vedic literature, the Indo-Aryan people conquered only the comparatively small stretch of land from the Indus as far as the Ganges, the actual Hindustān. If this advance from the extreme north-west over into the eastern Ganges-land already took so long, how many centuries must the conquest of the whole of Central and Southern India have taken! If we consider this, 700 years will no longer appear to us a great period of time.

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¹ See above, pp. 235 ff.

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There are other considerations besides this. It is indisputably to the credit of Max Müller to have shown that Buddhism at about 500 B.C. absolutely pre-supposes the existence of the whole of Vedic literature. In refutation of the view, held by some scholars,² that the earliest Upaniṣads should not be placed prior to the 6th century B.C., Oldenberg³ has shown that centuries must have elapsed between the earliest Upaniṣads and the earliest Buddhist literature. Buddhist literature, however, pre-supposes not only the Veda, but the Vedāṅgas also,⁴ and indeed brahmanical literature and science in a highly developed state. To-day, too, more light has been thrown on the religious conditions of ancient India than was the case in Max Müller's day, when it was thought possible to squeeze the whole development of the religious history of India up to the appearance of Buddhism within the limit of 700 years. Even *before* the appearance of Buddhism, there were sects in India, as Bühler has pointed out, which denied the sanctity of the Veda. The tradition of one of these sects, the Jainas, has in other respects proved so reliable as to chronology, that we may regard with some confidence a report which places the life of the first founder of this sect about 750 B.C. Bühler also thought he could prove that other sects antagonistic to the Veda and to Brahmanism went back to a much more hoary antiquity than had hitherto been supposed.¹ Unfortunately he did not live to demonstrate this proof.

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² Cf. Hopkins, JAOS 22, 336 n.; *Rapson*, Ancient India, p. 181.

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³ Die Lehre der Upanishaden und die Anfänge des Buddhismus, pp. 288, 357.

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⁴ It is noteworthy that the Buddhists, too, call their didactic texts "Sūtras", although these are by no means composed in the "Sūtra" style indicated above, on pp. 268 f. They took "Sūtra" to mean "didactic text."

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¹ R. *Garbe*, too (Beiträge zur indischen Kulturgeschichte, pp 27 ff), is inclined to date the origin of the sect of the Bhāgavatas or Pañcarātras back to pre-Buddhist times.

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The discoveries made by Hugo Winckler in Boghazköi in Asia Minor in the year 1907, gave an impetus to more recent discussions on the question of the age of the Ṛgveda and of Vedic culture.² The clay tablets from the archives of the capital of the ancient Hittite kingdom, which were found in Boghazköi, included records of treaties concluded by the king of the Hittites and the king of Mitani at the beginning of the 14th century B.C. The gods of both kingdoms are invoked as guardians of the treaties, and in the list of gods there appear, beside numerous Babylonian and Hittite deities, the names of Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra and Nāsatyau among the gods of Mitani.³ How did the names of these deities reach the Mitanis in Asia Minor? Scholars diverge greatly in their reply to this question. The historian Ed. Meyer ascribes these gods to the Aryan period, *i.e.*, the period when the Indians and Iranians as yet formed an undivided nation in language and religion[^1); and he assumes that, at the same time as these “Aryans” appeared in western Mesopotamia and Syria, the separate development of the Aryans in north-western India had already begun: the Vedic hymns, the earliest of which arose “probably not later than about 1500 B.C.” bearing witness to this development. A similar opinion has been expressed by P. Giles. Oldenberg [^2) thinks it more likely “that these are the gods of some western Aryan tribe akin to the Indians, inherited from some common past, as the Indians on their part had inherited them from the same source.” He leaves the question open whether these were Iranians before Zoroaster's time, or whether a third branch of the Aryans is meant, and takes the view that this discovery does not justify us in assuming greater antiquity for the Veda.

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² Cf. Ed. *Meyer*, SBA 1908, pp. 14 ff.; Zeitschrift fü vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, 42, 1909, pp. 1 ff.; Geschichte des Altertums, 2. Aufl, I, 2 (1909), §§ 551, 574; H. *Jacobi*, JRAS 1909, 721 ff.; 1910, 456 ff.; Internat. Wochenschrift, 5, 1911, 387; A. B. *Keith*, JRAS 1909, 1100 ff, : 1910, 464 ff.; Bhandarkar, Com. Vol., pp. 81 ff. and HOS. Vol. 18 Introd. (where the whole development of Vedic literature is crammed in between 1200 and 350 B.C., see esp. pp. clxv f.); A. A. *Macdonell* in Vedic Index I, pp. viii f and ERE 7, 1914, pp. 49 ff.; H. *Oldenberg*, JRAS 1909, pp. 1095 ff.; 1910, pp. 846 ff.; L de la *Vallée Poussin*, Le Védisme, 3 ième ed. Paris, 1909, pp. 29 f.; *Winternitz*, Oesterreichische Monatschrift für den Orient, 41, 1915 pp. 168 ff.; Calcutta Review, Nov., 1923, pp 119 ff.; *Sten Konow*, The Aryan Gods of the Mitani People (Royal Frederik University Publications of the Indian Institute, Kristiania, 1921); F. E. *Pargiter*, Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, London, 1922, pp. 300 ff.; P. *Giles*, Cambridge History of India, I, pp. 72 f.

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³ At least, nearly all scholars agree with *Winckler* (Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft No 35, 1907, p. 51, s. Boghazköi-Studien VIII, Leipzig 1923, pp. 32 f., 54 f.) that these names of gods have to be recognised in the following cuneiform text: **ilāni Mi-it-ra aś-śi-il ilāni U-ru-wa-na-aś-śi-el** (in another text: **A-ru-na-aś-śi-il**) **In-dar** (other text: **In-da-ra**) **ilāni Na-śa-at-ti-ya-an-na.** Doubts against this identification have only been raised by *J. Halévy* in Revue Semitique, 16. 1908, pp. 247 ff.

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It is a fact, however, that this particular grouping of the gods Varuṇa and Mitra, Indra and Nāsatyau, with these forms of their names, can be traced *only in the Veda*. For this reason I agree with Jacobi, Konow and Hillebrandt in considering these gods to be *Indian, Vedic* deities and that there is no possible justification for any other view. We shall have to assume that, just as there were Aryan immigrations into India from the west, there must have been isolated migrations back to the west. We may think either of warlike adventurers or of connections by marriage. Nor should we forget that, at the time of the

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[^1): H. Winckler (Orientalist. Literaturzeitung, 13, 1910, 289 ff.; Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft 18, 1913, H. 4, pp. 75 ff.) even thinks that the *Harri* who in the inscriptions are mentioned as the ruling class in Mitani are identical with these very “Aryans.” But this is quite uncertain. Cf. A. H. Sayce, JRAS 1909, pp. 1106 f. [^2): NGGW, Geschäftliche Mitteilungen, 1918, p. 91.

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Ṛgveda, the Aryan Indians were as yet much nearer the west from the geographical point of view.¹ As regards chronology, however, all that we can glean from the inscriptions at Boghazköi is that, about the middle of the second millenary B.C. Aryan tribes which worshipped Vedic gods must already have been established in north-western India for a very considerable time, as several of these tribes had migrated far back to the west as early as about 1400 B.C.² This small but important fact would be supported still further, if it should prove to be true that also traces of Indian numerals are to be found in the Boghazköi texts.³

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¹ See *A. Hillebrandt*, Aus Alt-und Neuindien, Breslau, 1922, pp. 1 ff. and ZII 3, 1924 pp. 1 ff. who points out traces of relations to Western countries especially in the eighth Book of the Ṛgveda. For other views about the Aryan Indians in Asia Minor see *R. G. Bhandarkar*, JBRAS 25, 1918, pp. 76 ff., and *E. Forrer*, Die acht Sprachen der Boghazköi-Inschriften, SBA 1919, pp. 1036 f.

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² *Konow* suggests that the Nāsatyas are mentioned in the Mitani treaty on account of their playing a role in the ancient marriage-rites, because the treaty, following upon a war between the Hittite king Subbiluliuma and the Mitani king Mattiuza, was confirmed by a marriage of the latter with the Hittite king's daughter. As this connection of the Aśvins with the marriage-ritual, however, occurs only in the late Sūryāsūkta, *Konow* concludes "that the extension of Indo-Aryan civilization into Mesopotamia took place after the bulk of the Ṛgveda had come into existence" so that the oldest portions of the collection would "have to be considered as considerably older than the Mitani treaty." I cannot see the force of this argument, as Indra and the Nāsatyau (Indranāsatyā) are invoked together in Rv. VIII, 26, 8, where they have nothing to do with marriage. *K. Chattopādhyāya* (*Calcutta Review*, May 1924, pp. 287 ff.) concludes from the mention of Vedic gods in the Boghazköi treaties that between 2000 and 1500 B.C. there were several arrivals of Aryan peoples in Asia Minor at the same time when other Aryan tribes entered India from Central Asia and became known as Vrātyas. This chronological combination of the Vrātyas with the Indians in Asia Minor has no foundation in fact whatsoever, hence Mr. Chattopādhyāya's chronological conclusions (Brāhmaṇa period from 2000 B.C. to 1400 B.C., Yajurveda and Atharvaveda about 2000 B.C. and Ṛgveda before 3,000 B.C.) are quite unfounded.

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³ Cf. *P. Jensen*, Indische Zahlwörter in Keilschrifthittitischen Texten, SBA 1919, pp. 367 ff.

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The idea of so early a date as the third millenary B.C. for the Veda would certainly be out of the question, if it were proved that the individual Indo-European peoples had not yet separated from the primitive Indo-Europeans in the third millenary.¹ This view which, in my opinion, is very unlikely and has not been satisfactorily proved, is welcomed by those who wish to assign as low a date as possible to the Ṛgveda and to the beginnings of Indian culture. Thus J. Hertel² promises to demonstrate that the Ṛgveda originated, not in north-western India but in Iran, and at a time not far distant from that of Zoroaster, who, according to Hertel, lived about 550 B.C. G. Hüsing³ goes still further, and turns and twists certain of the names of kings occurring in the cuneiform inscriptions so long that they are metamorphosed into those of Indian kings. On the basis of these "facts," he then concludes that from about 1000 B.C. the Indians wandered from Armenia to Afghanistan, which was the scene of the Ṛgvedic period, and that it was only later that they were driven further towards India. Following a suggestion of H. Brunnhofer, he even assumes that the king Kānīta Pṛthuśravas⁴ who is mentioned in the Ṛgveda is identical with a Scythian king Kanitas who is mentioned in a Greek inscription and on a coin, and who lived in the 2nd century B.C. This would mean "that the collection of these songs was not yet completed in the 2nd century B.C." This must surely be the very latest date ever yet assumed as that of the Ṛgveda!

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¹ Gunther *Ipsen* (*Indogerman.* Forschungen 41, 1923, pp. 174 ff.: Stand und Aufgaben der Sprachwissenschaft, Festschrift für W. Streitberg, Heidelberg 1924, pp. 200 ff.) endeavours to prove that the Indo-European words for "copper," "cow" and "star" were borrowed from the Sumerian, and not earlier than between 3000 and 2100 B.C. However, when we consider that the domestic cow and copper are among the most ancient of prehistoric finds, we shall hesitate to accept Ipsen's theory.

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² *Indogerman.* Forschungen 41, 1923, p. 188; Die Zeit Zoroasters, Leipzig, 1924; Die Himmelstore im Veda und im Avesta, Leipzig, 1924, pp. 7 f. A book by Hertel on the age and home of the Ṛgveda is announced, but has not yet been published. Zoroaster's date is still uncertain, but there are good reasons for placing him about 1000 B.C. See C. *Clemen,* Die griechischen und lateinischen Nachrichten über die persische Religion, Giessen 1920, pp. 11 ff.; H. *Reichelt* in Festschrift für W. Streitberg, pp. 282 f.

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³ Die Inder in Boghazköi, in Prace linguistyczne ofiarowane Janowi Baudouinowi de Courtenay... Krakow 1921, pp. 151 ff.

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⁴ Ṛv. VIII, 46, 21; 24. The story of this King Pṛthuśravas is one of the old tales which, like the Ākhyāna of Śunaḥśepa, were recited at the Puruṣamedha, s. Śāṅkhāyana-Śrautasūtra XVI, 11, 23.

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The strongest argument for a later dating of the Veda is undoubtedly the close relationship between the Veda and the Avesta with regard to language and religious views.¹ There are, however, very great differences to counteract the points of agreement in religion. Moreover the points of agreement can easily be explained, considering firstly that Indians and Iranians once formed *one* Aryan cultural unit at a pre-Vedic and pre-Avestic period, and secondly that they remained neighbours even after the separation. As regards the kinship of the languages, it is quite impossible to state definite chronological limits within which languages change. Some languages change very rapidly, others remain more or less unaltered for a long period.² It is true that hieratic languages, like those of the Vedic hymns and the Avesta, can remain unaltered much longer than spoken vernaculars.

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¹ Thus A. A. Macdonell (*ERE.* Vol. 7, 1914, pp. 49 ff.) says, that "it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Indians cannot have separated from the Iranians much earlier than about 1300 B. C."

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² Cf. A. C. Woolner (*Proc. FOC* I, pp. xvii ff.; II, p. 20 ff.) who rightly says "that as far as any philological estimates go, 2000 B. C. remains quite as possible as 1200 B. C. for the earliest Mantra." See also B. V. Kameśvara *Aiyar*, Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society XII, 1, p. 4

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Nevertheless, all that we know of the history of other languages and branches of languages compels us to say that languages do not remain unchanged for an indefinite number of millenaries, let alone tens of thousands of years. For this reason, the fantastic figures of 16000 or even 25000 B. C.³ as the date of the Veda, built up on the basis of astronomical or geological speculations, are absolutely impossible. Figures like this imply, too, that scarcely any cultural progress worthy of the name was made in the whole course of that overwhelmingly long aeon, which would be most surprising in the case of so talented a race as the Indians. These figures are impossible, too, because the continuity between the Vedic and the later brahmanical culture, which cannot be explained away especially as regards religion, would then become utterly inexplicable. Moreover, classical Sanskrit, as fixed by Pāṇini in his Grammar more especially on the basis of the language of the Brāhmaṇas which still formed part of the Veda proper, and again the language of the inscriptions of King Aśoka in the third century B. C., show too close a relationship with the language of the Veda for it to be feasible that a stretch of so very many thousands of years lay between.

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³ I am thinking of Abinas Chandra Das, Ṛig-Vedic India, I, Calcutta 1921 (s. also Calcutta Review, March 1924, pp. 540 ff.) and D. N. Mukhopadhyaya, The Hindu Nakshatras (reprinted from Vol. VI of Journal of the Department of Science, Calcutta University, 1923).

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In summing up, we may say:

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1. Attempts to determine the period of the Veda by the aid of *astronomy* come to grief owing to the fact that there are certain passages in the Vedic texts which admit of various interpretations. However correct the astronomical calculations may be, they prove nothing unless the texts in question admit of an unambiguous interpretation.

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2. The *historical facts* and hypotheses, such as the mention of Vedic gods in the cuneiform inscriptions, and the relationship of Vedic antiquity to the Aryan (Indo-Iranian) and Indo-European period, are so uncertain in themselves that the most divergent and contradictory conclusions have been drawn from them. Nevertheless, we have now such likely evidence of relations between ancient India and western Asia penetrating as far west as Asia Minor in the second millenary B. C., that Vedic culture can be traced back *at least* to the second millenary B. C.

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3. The *linguistic* facts, the near relationship between the language of the Veda and that of the Avesta on the one hand, and between the Vedic language and classical Sanskrit on the other, do not yield any positive results;

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4. they serve as a warning to us, however, to refrain from dating the Veda back to an inconceivably distant period on the strength of astronomical or *geological* speculations.

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5. As all the external evidence fails, we are compelled to rely on *the evidence arising out of the history of Indian literature itself*, for the age of the Veda. The surest evidence in this respect is still the fact that Pārśva, Mahāvīra and Buddha pre-suppose the entire Veda as a literature to all intents and purposes completed, and this is a limit which we must not exceed. We cannot, however, explain the development of the whole of this great literature, if we assume as late a date as round about 1200 or 1500 B. C. as its starting-point. We shall probably have to date the beginning of this development about 2000 or 2500 B. C., and the end of it between 750 and 500 B. C. The more prudent course, however, is to steer clear of any fixed dates, and to guard against the extremes of a stupendously ancient period or a ludicrously modern epoch.

Cites (15)