rrived with regard to the period of the entry of the Aryans
(4000 B. C.) in the Indus country (to which Sarasvati does not belong--one
can as easily count seven as five rivers from the eastern branch of the
upper Indus to the west of the Satadru), and with regard to the difficult
questions of the connection of these migrations with Zoroaster. That is, I
_must_ place Zoroaster _before_ the emigration; on the march (from
5000-4000) the emigrants gradually break off. Three heresies, one after
another, are mentioned in the record itself. The not exterminated germs of
the nature-worship (with the adoration of fire) spring up again, but the
moral life remained. (1.) Therefore the Veda language is to me the
precipitate of the Old Bactrian (as the Edda language of the Old Norse).
(2.) The _Zend language_ is the second step from the Northern Old
Bactrian. (3.) The Sanskrit is one still further advanced from the
Southern Old Bactrian, or from the Veda language. (4.) All _Indian
literature_, except the Vedas, is in the New South Bactrian, already
become a learned language, which has been named the perfect or Sanskrit
language. The _epochs of the language_ are the three _great historical
catastrophes_.

A. _Kingdom in the region of the Indus._--4000-3000. The Veda language as a
living popular language.

B. _Second Period._--On the Sarasvati and in the Duab. The Veda tongue
becomes the learned language. Sanskrit is the _popular_ language,
3000-2000.

C. _Third Period._--Sanskrit _begins_ to be the learned language, at least
at the end.

D. Kali=1150 B. C. Sanskrit merely the learned language.

Therefore the oldest Vedas, the purely popular, cannot be younger than
3000; the _collection_ was made in the third period, the tenth book is
already in chief part written in a _dead language_. You see all depends on
whether I can authenticate the four periods with their three catastrophes;
for a new form of language presupposes a political change. Forms such as
Har-aqaiti I can explain just as that the Norwegian names of places are
younger than the corresponding Icelandic forms; in the colony the old
remains as a fixed form, in the mother country the language progresses.

For what concerns now seriously the _Mythology_, your spirited essay
opening the way was a real godsend, for I had just arrived at the
conviction which you will find expressed in the introduction to Book V.
(a): That the so-called nature-religion can be nothing but the