The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c6.s1.6

c6.s1.6

We are waiting now for the time when the India Exploration Society shall step out from its existence on paper, and take hold of the shovel and the spade. With bated breath we shall then be watching to see whether great good fortune will make it possible to dig through the thick crust of centuries that are piled upon the Vedic period. If so, it will be something like the revelation of the Mycenæan age that was found at the root of Hellenic civilisation. Until that time Vedic life and institutions, reported only by word of mouth, must remain an uncertain quantity. The hymns of the Veda are to a considerable degree cloudy, turgid, and mystic; taken by themselves they will never yield a clear picture of human life that fits any time or place. We have from the entire Vedic period no annals except priestly annals, or such at least as have been edited by priests. It is as though we relied upon cloister chronicles alone for our knowledge of the politics and institutions of a certain time. Or, to use an even homelier comparison, as though we had to reconstruct the social conditions of a more modern time from an intercepted boarding-school correspondence. The poets, or priestly writers of the Veda are entirely preoccupied with their own interests; if we want anything like secular records of India we must look to a later time.