Vedic and Post-Vedic Literature

REFERENCE has already been made in this work to the difficulty of dating the Ṛigveda. Whereas Müx Muller was of opinion that the year 1000 B.C. was the latest possible date of its compilation, shortly afterwards knowledge of the language of the Avesta, which is very like that of the Ṛigveda, caused the latter to be brought some centuries later. Now that the comparative antiquity of the Avesta is coming into favour, the age of the Ṛigveda is benefiting by it. Besides, there have been discovered in the Vedic hymns memories of a life which may have been led very far away from Hindustan, far in time and in place, for it seems to contain Asianic elements intermingled with Indian. Scholars are inclined to throw certain parts back to the period of the Hittites in Asia Minor. ¹ Nor should we forget the bold contention of H. Jacobi, ² nor that of Bal Gangadhar Tilak of Bombay. ³ These two views were put forward at the same time, independently of one another, and they present the most astonishing conclusions. Jacobi, in virtue of an examination of the Indian calendar as it is found in certain Vedic chants and of a comparison of these data with those of the Brāhmaṇas, places the age of the Veda over four thousand years before our era. Tilak places it six thousand years before Christ. Doubt is still permissible; were the observations of the heavens recorded in the texts correct?