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10 Works of Pandit Guru Datta Vidyarthi
within 8,000 years. The whole region of the intellectual activity of
man seems to have been focussed in the 6,000 years before Christ.
Irrespective of these views let us come directly to the subject of
the Vedas. The ShataPatha and the Nirukta are confessedly books of
much anterior date to the commentaries of Sayana, Ravana and
Mahidhara. We should rather resort to them and the Upanishads than
to the times of Puranas, of Ravana and of Mahidhara, for the
interpretation of the Vedas.
The Upanishads inculcate monotheism. Where, in the
Upanishads or the ShataPatha, do Indra,
Mitra,
and
Varuna
signify
the deities and not the Deity? The Nirukta even lays down explicit
rules on the terminology of the Vedas which are, as yet, quite unheeded
by the modern professors.
The Niruktakara,- in the very beginning of his book, forcibly
inculcates that the terms used in the Vedas are
yaugika
(possessing
derived meaning) as contrasted with
rurhis
(terms having
conventional, arbitrary or concrete meaning). We will, on some future
occasion, quote at full length from the Nirukta, and render a better
exposition of this doctrine. Here, however, we have simply said what
the main assertion of the Nirukta is. This assertion is supported by
the Mahabhashya and other older books on the subject, including
Sangraha.
If the main line pursued in discussi" the question of the
terminology of the Vedas be correct, the concti.3ion we have arrived at
leads to the following inquiry:
What is the opinion of ancient Vedic scholars on the subject?
Are the authors of the Nirukta, the Nighantu, the Mahabhashya, and
the Sangraha, and other old commentators, at one with the modern
commentators,
i.e.,
Ravana, Sayana, Mahidhara and others, who have,
of late, followed the same line; or, are they at variance with the modem
writers? That, if they differ, reliance must be placed upon old
commentators, the preceding remarks would have made clear. Let us
then examine the views of ancient writers on the subject.
Speaking broadly, then, three classes of words are used in the
Sanskrit language; the
yaugika,
the
rurhi
and the
yoga-rurhi
words. A
yaugika
word is one that has a
derivative
meaning, that is, one that only