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The Terminology of the Vedas 9
more important in the fixing of these dates is the knowledge of
historical evolution of Sanskrit literature. The Sanskrit of the
Puranas is so different from the Sanskrit of the Mahabharata, and
that of the Darshanas, which again is so different from that of the
Upanishads, that a clear line of demarcation in each case is easily
laid down. The one cannot be confounded with the other.
It is a matter of great surprise and wonder that in the case of
the Vedas the method, whose merits are so evident and obvious,
and which is so well recognised in the domain of history, should
not have been applied, or, so loosely and carelessly applied as to
render modern interpretations of the Vedas by some very well
known professors of Sanskrit simply unintelligible and absurd.
In the case of the Vedas the learned professors of Sanskrit,
whose versions of the Vedas are so extant, have all derived their
inspirations from the commentaries on the Vedas by Mahidhara
Ravana and Sayana, writers of a period decidedly very much later
than that of the Vedas, and only well coinciding with our own time
These writers themselves were as much ignorant of the terminology
of the Vedas, as we are. Their interpretations of Vedic terms
according to their meanings extant in their own times, were as
wrong as would be those of words like democracy in our studies
concerning ancient Rome. Mahidhara and Sayana fare in no way
better than ourselves. It seems astonishing that in adopting the
interpretation of the Vedas by Sayana and Ravana, our modern
professors of Sanskrit should have forgotten the invaluable maxim
that the nearer we approximate to the literature of the period to
which the Vedas belong for their interpretation, the greater would
be our chances of the interpretation, being more probable and more
correct. According to the date assigned by these professors to the
Vedas, their interpretation of the Vedas would be .based on the
literature of a period so heterogeneous to the time and spirit of the
Vedas as to give rise to nothing but confusion and error.
To the view of any impartial reader, who has studied the
investigations of Goldstucker on this point, the whole fabric of dates
crumbles to dust, and the whole system of modern recognized
chronology is easily upset. According to the best [and they are, as
a matter of fact, the worst] authorities on the subject, no writings
of date anterior to five or six thousand years before Christ seem to
have existed. The whole world seems to have been
circumscribed