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Impatience to generalise has availed itself greedily of whatever promised to afford materials for generalisation ; and the most ernn neoufl views have been confidently advocated, because the guides to which their authors trusted were ignorant or insufficient.'* B 4 8 AIM OF SANSKRIT PHILOLOGY.. cial scholar, to bring together a vast mass of informa- tion, bearing more or less remotely on questions of no importance whatsoever. The test of a true scholar is to be able to find out what is really important, to state with precision and clearness the results of long and tedious researches, and to suppress altogether lu- cubrations, which, though they might display the laboriousness of the writer, would but encumber his subject with needless difficulty. The object and aim of philology, in its highest sense, is but one, — to learn what man is, by learning what man has been. With this principle for our pole-star, we shall never lose ourselves, though en gaged in the most minute and abstruse inquiries. Our own studies may seemingly refer to matters that are but secondary and preparatory, to the clearance, so to say, of the rubbish which passing ages have left on the monuments of the human mind. But we shall never mistake that rubbish for the monuments which it covers. And if, after years of tiresome labour, we do not arrive at the results which we expected, — if we find but spurious and unimportant fabrications of individuals, where we thought to place ourselves face to face with the heroes of an ancient world, and among ruins that should teach us the lessons of former ages, — we need not be discouraged nor ashamed, for in true science even a disappointment is a result. If, then, it is the aim of Sanskrit philology to sup- ply one of the earliest and most important links in the history of mankind, we must go to work histo- rically; that is, we must begin, as far as we can, with the beginning, and then trace gradually the growth of the Indian mind, in its various manifestations, as far as the remaining literary monuments allow us to ^j^^TOKxCAr. POSITION OP THE VEDA. 9 n tbi^ ^:^i-se. What has been said with regard r-inso^*^^' *^^* '* "^^ "'^^^ ^^"^^^^ a knowledge of ^v^ Wtiti^'^^ ^^^ fi^t principles, because then we vwt vr^ understand any thing when we believe "^^ Vo^ i*^ ^^^ beginnings," applies with equal force "^^ w torr- -"^^^ ^very one acquainted with Indian *^ ♦.tL t^^®*^ ^^v® observed how impossible it is to WtetatuT^ ^^^1^ ^^ j^j.^^ ^^j^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^.^^ ^J^^ Ig^cV^ ^^Pon an earlier authority, which is ge- ^ ^^ ^dfet%<>^l^<ig^<i by the Indians as the basis of ^tr^vLr Ytvo^^^dge, whether sacred or profane This ^^5fii and pYA^^sophical works, as well as in poetry, in ^odes oi ^^> ^^ astronomical, grammatical, metri- cal and lexicographic compositions, is called by one ' pi^hensive name, the Veda. It is wi*^ *^® Veda, therefore, that Indian philo- logy o^g*^* *^ begin if it is to follow a natural and historical course. So great an influence has the Vedic 3ge (the historical period to which we are justified in referring the formation of the sacred texts) exer- cised upon all succeeding periods of Indian history, so closely is every branch of literature connected with Vedic traditions, so deeply have the religious and moral ideas of that primitive era taken root in the mind of the Indian nation, so minutely has almost every private and public act of Indian life been regulated by old traditionary precepts, that it is impossible to find the right point of view for judging of Indian religion, morals, and literature without a knowledge of the literary remains of the Vedic age. No one could fairly say that those men who first began to study Sanskrit, now seventy years ago, ought to have begun with reading the Veda. The difficulties connected 10 THB VEDIC AGE. with the study of the Veda would have made such a course utterly impossible and useless. But since the combined labours of Sanskrit scholars have now ren- dered the study of that language of more easy access, since the terminology of Indian grammarians and commentators, which not long ago was considered un- intelligible, has become more £a.miliar to us, and manu- scripts can be more readily procured at the principal public libraries of Europe, Sanskrit philology has no longer an excuse for ignoring the Yedic age. It might be inferred from the very variety of sub- jects upon which, as has been just observed, the Veda is quoted as the last and highest authority, that by Veda must be understood something more than a single work. It would be, indeed, much nearer the truth to take " Veda" as a collective name for the sacred literature of the Yedic age, which forms, so to speak, the background of the whole Indian world. Many of the works which belonged to that period of literature have been irrecoverably lost. With regard to many of them, though their existence cannot be doubted, it is even uncertain whether they were ever . committed to writing. A large number, however, of Yedic works does still exist; and it will require many years before they can be edited together with their commentaries. Till then it will be impossible to arrive at definite results on many questions con- nected with Yedic literature, and it would not be safe to take a comprehensive view of the whole Yedic age before all the sources have been exhausted from which its history and character can be studied. Nothing could be farther from the purpose of this historical essay than to attempt anything of this kind at present. What I have to offer are but Prol^o^ THE V£DIC AQE. 11 mena to the Veda, or treatiseti on some preliminary questions connected with the history of the Yedic age. There are points which can be settled with complete certainty, though it may be impossible to bring, as yet, the whole weight of evidence to bear upon them; and the general question as to the au- thenticity, the antiquity, and the different periods of Yedic literature, ought to be answered even before beginning an edition of Yedic works. Again, there are many questions of special interest for Sanskrit literature, in which even now, with the materials that have been published, and with the help of manu- scripts that are accessible in the public libraries of Europe, it is possible to arrive at certain results; while other points are such that even after the com- plete publication of all Yedic texts and commentaries, they will remain open to different views, and will necessarily become the subject of literary discussions* The principal object of the following essays will be to put the antiquity of the Yeda in its proper light. By antiquity, however, is meant, not only the chrono- logical distance of the Yedic age from our own, mea- sured by the revolutions and the progress of the heavenly bodies, but also and still more, the distance between the intellectual, moral, and religious state of men as represented to us during the Yedic age, com- pared with that of other periods of history, — a dis- tance which can only be measured by the revolutions and the progress of the human mind. No one who is at all acquainted with the position which India occupies in the history of the world, would expect to find many synchronisms between the his- tary of the Brahmans and that of other nations before the date of the origin of Buddhism in India. Al- 12 TUB ARYAN FAMILY. though the Brahmans*of India belong to the same family, the Aryan or Indo-European family, which civilised the whole of Europe, the two great branches of that primitive race were kept asunder for centuries after their first separation. The main stream of the Aryan nations has always flowed towards the north- west* No historian can tell us by what impulse those adventurous Nomads were driven on through Asia towards the isles and shores of Europe. The first start of this world-wide migration belongs to a period far beyond the reach of documentary history ; to times when the soil of Europe had not been trodden by either Celts, Germans, Slavonians, Romans, or Greeks. But whatever it was, the impulse was as irresistible as the spell which, in our own times, sends the Celtic tribes towards the prairies or the regions of gold across the Atlantic. It requires a strong will, or a great amount of inertness, to be able to withstand the impetus of such national, or rather ethnical move- ments. Few will stay behind when all are going.