every literature, and more particularly of the
literatures of the ancient world.

Still, even beyond this, I am quite prepared to acknowledge to a
certain extent the truth of the statement, that a great portion of
Sanskrit literature has never been living and national, in the same
sense in which the Greek and Roman literatures reflected at times the
life of a whole nation; and it is quite true besides, that the
Sanskrit books which are best known to the public at large, belong to
what might correctly be called the Renaissance period of Indian
literature, when those who wrote Sanskrit had themselves to learn the
language, as we learn Latin, and were conscious that they were writing
for a learned and cultivated public only, and not for the people at
large.

This will require a fuller explanation.

We may divide the whole of Sanskrit literature, beginning with the
Rig-Veda and ending with Dayananda's Introduction to his edition of
the Rig-Veda, his by no means uninteresting Rig-Veda-bhumika, into two
great periods: that preceding the great Turanian invasion, and that
following it.

The former comprises the Vedic literature and the ancient literature
of Buddhism, the latter all the rest.

If I call the invasion which is generally called the invasion of the
_S_akas, or the Scythians, or Indo-Scythians, or Turushkas, the
_Turanian[99] invasion_, it is simply because I do not as yet wish to
commit myself more than I can help as to the nationality of the tribes
who took possession of India, or, at least, of the government of
India, from about the first century B.C. to the third century A.D.

They are best known by the name of _Yueh-chi_, this being the name by
which they are called in Chinese chronicles. These Chinese chronicles
form the principal source from which we derive our knowledge of these
tribes, both before and after their invasion of India. Many theories
have been started as to their relationship with other races. They are
described as of pink and white complexion and as shooting from
horseback; and as there was some similarity between their Chinese name
_Yueh-chi_ and the _Gothi_ or _Goths_, they were identified by
Remusat[100] with those German tribes, and by others with the _Getae_,
the neighbors of the Goths. Tod went even a step farther, and traced
the _G_ats in India and the Rajputs back to the _Yueh-chi_ and
_Getae_.[101] Some light may come in time out of all this darkness, but
for the present we mus