to be studied, partly because I believe that for a
proper understanding of the deepest convictions, or, if you like, the
strongest prejudices of the modern Hindus, nothing is so useful as a
knowledge of the Veda. It is perfectly true that nothing would give a
falser impression of the actual Brahmanical religion than the ancient
Vedic literature, supposing we were to imagine that three thousand
years could have passed over India without producing any change. Such
a mistake would be nearly as absurd as to deny any difference between
the Vedic Sanskrit and the spoken Bengali. But no one will gain a
scholarlike knowledge or a true insight into the secret springs of
Bengali who is ignorant of the grammar of Sanskrit; and no one will
ever understand the present religious, philosophical, legal, and
social opinions of the Hindus who is unable to trace them back to
their true sources in the Veda.

I still remember how, many years ago, when I began to publish for the
first time the text and the commentary of the Rig-Veda, it was argued
by a certain, perhaps not quite disinterested party, that the Veda was
perfectly useless; that no man in India, however learned, could read
it, and that it was of no use either for missionaries or for any one
else who wished to study and to influence the native mind. It was said
that we ought to study the later Sanskrit, the Laws of Manu, the epic
poems, and, more particularly, the Pura_n_as. The Veda might do very
well for German students, but not for Englishmen.

There was no excuse for such ignorant assertions even thirty years
ago, for in these very books, in the Laws of Manu, in the Mahabharata,
and in the Pura_n_as, the Veda is everywhere proclaimed as the highest
authority in all matters of religion.[150] "A Brahman," says Manu,
"unlearned in holy writ, is extinguished in an instant like dry grass
on fire." "A twice-born man (that is, a Brahma_n_a, a Kshatriya, and a
Vai_s_ya) not having studied the Veda, soon falls, even when living,
to the condition of a _S_udra, and his descendants after him."

How far this license of ignorant assertion may be carried is shown by
the same authorities who denied the importance of the Veda for a
historical study of Indian thought, boldly charging those wily
priests, the Brahmans, with having withheld their sacred literature
from any but their own caste. Now, so far from withholding it, the
Brahmans have always been striving, and often striving in vain, to