, as he is
supposed to have done, burst forth into singing Vedic hymns? But who
has ever maintained this? Surely whoever has eyes to see can see in
every Vedic hymn, ay, in every Vedic word, as many rings within rings
as are in the oldest tree that was ever hewn down in the forest.

I shall say even more, and I have said it before, namely, that
supposing that the Vedic hymns were composed between 1500 and 1000
B.C., we can hardly understand how, at so early a date, the Indians
had developed ideas which to us sound decidedly modern. I should give
anything if I could escape from the conclusion that the collection of
the Vedic Hymns, a collection in ten books, existed at least 1000
B.C., that is, about 500 years before the rise of Buddhism. I do not
mean to say that something may not be discovered hereafter to enable
us to refer that collection to a later date. All I say is that, so far
as we know _at present_, so far as all honest Sanskrit scholars know
_at present_, we cannot well bring our pre-Buddhistic literature into
narrower limits than five hundred years.

What then is to be done? We must simply keep our preconceived notions
of what people call primitive humanity in abeyance for a time, and if
we find that people three thousand years ago were familiar with ideas
that seem novel and nineteenth-century-like to us, well, we must
somewhat modify our conceptions of the primitive savage, and remember
that things hid from the wise and prudent have sometimes been revealed
to babes.

I maintain then that for a study of man, or, if you like, for a study
of Aryan humanity, there is nothing in the world equal in importance
with the Veda. I maintain that to everybody who cares for himself, for
his ancestors, for his history, or for his intellectual development, a
study of Vedic literature is indispensable; and that, as an element of
liberal education, it is far more important and far more improving
than the reigns of Babylonian and Persian kings.

It is curious to observe the reluctance with which these facts are
accepted, particularly by those to whom they ought to be most welcome,
I mean the students of anthropology. Instead of devoting all their
energy to the study of these documents, which have come upon us like a
miracle, they seem only bent on inventing excuses why they need not be
studied. Let it not be supposed that, because there are several
translations of the Rig-Veda in English, French and German, therefore
all