A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s13.5

v1.c8.s13.5

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