Basic HTML Version
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( xxxvi )
and exegesist of theWest. MaxMuller once ventured to pronounce
a purely arbitrary date based on unproven assumptions that around
1200 B.C. was the date of the Rgveda. Later, he himself warned
his students that "Whether the Vedic Hymns were composed in
1000 or 1500 or 2000 B.C., no power on earth could ever fix ....
Whatever may be the date of the Vedic hymns... they have their
own unique place and stand by themselves". Such daring
presumptions of western scholars about the date of the Vedas are
exposed by Graham Hancock in his latest researches, in his
explosive book:
Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of
Civilization (2002).
Hancock first gives the range of dates accepted byWestern
scholars such as Max Muller and Dr. Mitchiner, a great authority
on ancient Sanskrit texts: Vedas 1500-800 BC, Brahmanas 900-
600 BC, Aranyakas 700-500 BC, Upanishads 600-400 BC,
Mahabharata 350 BC-50AD, Ramayana 250 BC-200AD, Puranas
AD 200-1500. "Amazing!" says he:
"Whether starting in 1500
BC, 1400 BC or 1200 BC, the timelines, suggested for the
compilation and codification of the Vedas, all rest on the now
thoroughly falsified and bankrupt (and rejected) idea of an
Aryan invasion of India around 1500 BC". He continues:
'There was no such thing as an Aryan race that spoke Indo-
European languages and authored the Vedas, there was no
such event as anAryan invasion of India.
'Arya' does not mean
a race, it means a noble, educated and cultured person. So once
the hypothesis of the Aryan invasion is rejected, the structure of
the supposed dates of the Vedas and other texts crumbles like a
house of cards.' And then he sums up the view of the Western
approach to the Vedas and Indian civilization:
"Almost
everything that was ever written about this literature and
civilization before five years ago (i.e., before 1997) is wrong."
(See pp. 131, 116, 129)
Max Muller himself in his Gifford Lectures in 1890 had
confessed that "no power on earth could ever fix" the date of
the Vedas. Even Mitchiner himself concedes that "the dating
of Sanskrit texts is a notoriously difficult problem" (Quoted
Ibid p. 131)
All rights reserved with publisher. Not for commercial or non-commercial distribution.
thearyasamaj.org