Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c2.7

v1.c2.7

Chronological Limits.—The period which the book was intended to embrace had been decided at the outset as that of the Vedas and Brāhmaṇas. The upper limit here is the date of the oldest hymns of the Rigveda. That date is uncertain, but my conviction (set forth in my *History of Sanskrit Literature*, pp. 11-12) that it is not much earlier than 1200 B.C. still remains unshaken. It does not appear to me to be in the slightest degree invalidated by Professor Hugo Winckler’s discoveries at Boghaz-köi, in Asia Minor, in the year 1907. That scholar has deciphered, in an inscription of about 1400 B.C. found there, the names of certain deities as *mi-it-ra*, *uru-w-na*, *in-da-ra*, and *na-ša-at-ti-ia*, which correspond to those of the important Vedic gods Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra, and Nāsatya. Three inferences may be drawn from the occurrence of these names. They may have been derived from Vedic India; in that case the Vedic religion must have flourished in India considerably before 1400 B.C., even though the hymns that have come down to us may not have been composed before that date. But that these names should have travelled all the way from India to Asia Minor is a hypothesis so highly improbable that it may be dismissed. Secondly, the names may belong to the early Iranian period after the Iranians had separated from the Indians, but before their language had reached the phonetic stage of the Avesta. This seems the most probable theory, both chronologically and geographically. It implies only that the Indian branch had separated from the Iranian, not that it had already entered India. Lastly, the names, being common to the Iranian and Indian languages, might be assigned to the Indo-Iranian period when the two branches were still one people living in Iran. This theory would still allow two centuries for separation, migration to India, and the commencement of Vedic literature in the north-west of India.