development will be expressed in the concluding chapter of the second
volume of the present work.

10




CHAPTER II


THE VEDAS, BRÂHMANAS AND THEIR PHILOSOPHY

The Vedas and their antiquity.

The sacred books of India, the Vedas, are generally believed to be the
earliest literary record of the Indo-European race. It is indeed
difficult to say when the earliest portions of these compositions came
into existence. Many shrewd guesses have been offered, but none of them
can be proved to be incontestably true. Max Müller supposed the date to
be 1200 B.C., Haug 2400 B.C. and Bâl Ga@ngâdhar Tilak 4000 B.C. The
ancient Hindus seldom kept any historical record of their literary,
religious or political achievements. The Vedas were handed down from
mouth to mouth from a period of unknown antiquity; and the Hindus
generally believed that they were never composed by men. It was
therefore generally supposed that either they were taught by God to the
sages, or that they were of themselves revealed to the sages who were the
"seers" (_mantradra@s@tâ_) of the hymns. Thus we find that when some
time had elapsed after the composition of the Vedas, people had come to
look upon them not only as very old, but so old that they had,