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The Terminology of the Vedas and European Scholars 25
the mythological lore of the ancient Aryans.
And since, even according to the confessions of Max Muller,
higher truths of philosophy and monotheism are to be found here
and there in the Vedas, it has become difficult to reconcile the
mythological interpretations of the main part of the Vedas with the
philosophical portions. Says Max Muller, "I add only one more
hymn, in which the idea of one God is expressed with such power
and decision, that it will make us hesitate before we deny to the
Aryan nations an instinctive monotheism [Rig. x.121]."* It is,
therefore, argued by some that the mythological portions are earlier
than philosophical ones; for, the primitive faith, as already indicated
is always mythology.
The fundamental error of this supposition lies in regarding
a contingent conclusion as a necessary one; for, although mythology
may be the result of barbarous intellect and analogical reasoning,
it is not necessarily always so. It may even grow up as a degenerate,
deformed and petrified remnant of a purer and truer religion. The
history of religious practices, primarily designed to meet certain
real wants, degenerating, after a lapse of time, on the cessation of
those wants, into mere ceremonies and customs, is an ample
testimony of the truth of the above remarks. Had the European
scholars never come across the mythological commentaries of
Sayana and Mahidhara, or the
puranic
literature of post-Vedic (nay
anti-Vedic) period, it would have been impossible for them, from
the mere grounds of comparative mythology or Sanskrit philology,
to alight on such interpretations of the Vedas as are at present
current among them. May it not be, that the whole mythological
fabric of the
puranas,
later as they are, was raised long after the
vitality of true Vedic philosophy had departed from their words in
the sight of the ignorant pedants? Indeed, when one considers that
the
Upanishads
inculcate that philosophical monotheism, the parallel
of which does not exist in the world — a monotheism that can only
be conceived after a full conviction in the uniformity of nature, —
and that they, together with the philosophical
darshanas, all preceded
the
puranas;
when one considers all this, one can hardly resist the
conclusion that, at least in India, mythology rose as a rotten remnant
of the old philosophical living religion of the Vedas. When through
* Max Muller, A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 521.