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6
Works of Pandit Guru Datta Vidyarthi
mythological method as the existence of philosophy and philosophic
ideas in the Vedas. That the Vedas are books of philosophy and
not of mythology must not be admitted merely because a well-
known professor and scholar of Sanskrit acknowledges that the
germ of human thought and reason lies in the Vedas, whereas,
according to him, its culmination lies in the philosophy of Kant,
but on other and more trustworthy bases and authorities. The
growth of philosophy in Sanskrit literature is earlier than the growth
of mythology. The Upanishads and the Darshanas, which are
professedly books of philosophy and confessedly nearer to the
Vedas, chronologically preceded, and not followed, the Puranas,
the embodiment of mythological literature of India. It was
philosophy that was evolved from the Vedas, and not mythology.
In the history of Indian literature, at least, it is not mythology that
gives birth to philosophy, but philosophy that precedes mythology.
How far mythology may rise as an out-growth and a distorted
remnant of a purer and truer form of religion or philosophy, might
perhaps now have been rendered more evident. Now the six
schools of philosophy are, all of them, based on the Vedas, and
support themselves by direct quotations from the Vedas. Not only,
then, has philosophy been evolved from the Vedas, but substantially
drawn out and evolved or developed subsequently. There is one,
and only one objection that can be raised against the above views.
It is that the different portions of the Vedas belong to different
epochs, for whilst some portions are mythological, others are
decidedly philosophical. We would not here say what is already
well-known, that, however, it may be, not one line of the Vedas is
later than the Darshanas or the Upanishads, not to speak of the
Puranas. Howsoever greatly wide apart may be the epochs assigned
to the various portions of the Vedas, no stretch of artificial reasoning
can make them coincide with the Puranic period. Independently
of these considerations, which are important however, the very
assignment of different epochs to the Vedas proves the insufficiency
and partial character of the mythological system. The truth of the
mythological system lies in the isolations of the portions of the
Vedas. It is not the Vedas as a whole that furnish an illustration of
this method, but in part. But what reason have we to isolate these
portions or to split up the homogeneous mass into two? Simply
this, that they belong to two distinct epochs. Now the assertion