ANTIQUlTY OF THE VEDAS
By H.P. Blavatsky
A JOURNAL interested like the THEOSOPHIST in the explorations of
archæology and archaic religions, as well as the study of
the occult in nature, has to be doubly prudent and discreet. To
bring the two conflicting elements--exact science and metaphysics--into
direct contact, might create as great a disturbance as to throw
a piece of potassium into a basin of water. The very fact that we
are predestined and pledged to prove that some of the wisest of
Western scholars have been misled by the dead letter of appearances
and that they are unable to discover the hidden spirit in the relics
of old, places us under the ban from the start. With those sciolists
who are neither broad enough, nor sufficiently modest to allow their
decisions to be reviewed, we are necessarily in antagonism. Therefore,
it is essential that our position in relation to certain scientific
hypotheses, perhaps tentative and only sanctioned for want of better
ones--should be clearly defined at the outset.
An infinitude of study has been bestowed by the archaeologists
and the orientalists upon the question of chronology--especially
in regard to Comparative Theology. So far, their affirmations as
to the relative antiquity of the great religions of the pre-Christian
era are little more than plausible hypotheses. How far back the
national and religious Vedic period, so called, extends--"it
is impossible to tell," confesses Prof. Max Müller; nevertheless,
he traces it "to a period anterior to 1,000 B.C.," and
brings us "to 1,100 or 1,200 B.C., as the earliest time when
we may suppose the collection of the Vedic hymns to have been finished."
Nor do any other of our leading scholars claim to have finally settled
the vexed question, especially delicate as it is in its bearing
upon the chronology of the book of Genesis. Christianity, the direct
outflow of Judaism and in most cases the State religion of their
respective countries, has unfortunately stood in their way. Hence,
scarcely two scholars agree; and each assigns a different date to
the Vedas and the Mosaic books, taking care in every case to give
the latter the benefit of the doubt. Even that leader of the leaders
in philological and chronological questions--Professor Müller,
hardly twenty years ago, allowed himself a prudent margin by stating
that it will be difficult to settle "whether the Veda is 'the
oldest of books,' and whether some of the portions of the Old Testament
may not be traced back to the same or even an earlier date than
the oldest hymns of the Veda." The THEOSOPHIST is, therefore,
quite warranted in either adopting or rejecting as it pleases the
so-called authoritative chronology of science. Do we err then, in
confessing that we rather incline to accept the chronology of that
renowned Vedic scholar, Swami Dayánund Saraswati, who unquestionably
knows what he is talking about, has the four Vedas by heart, is
perfectly familiar with all Sanskrit literature, has no such scruples
as the Western Orientalists in regard to public feelings, nor desire
to humour the superstitious notions of the majority, nor has any
object to gain in suppressing facts? We are only too conscious of
the risk in withholding our adulation from scientific authorities.
Yet, with the common temerity of the heterodox we must take our
course, even though, like the Tarpeïa of old, we be smothered
under a heap of shields--a shower of learned quotations from these
"authorities."
We are far from feeling ready to adopt the absurd chronology of
a Berosus or even Syncellus--though in truth they appear "absurd"
only in the light of our preconceptions. But, between the extreme
claims of the Brahmins and the ridiculously short periods conceded
by our Orientalists for the development and full growth of that
gigantic literature of the ante-Mahábháratan period,
there ought to be a just mean. While Swami Dayánund Saraswati
asserts that "The Vedas have now ceased to be objects of study
for nearly 5,000 years," and places the first appearance of
the four Vedas at an immense antiquity; Professor Müller, assigning
for the composition of even the earliest among the Brâhmanas,
the years from about 1,000 to 800 B.C., hardly dares, as we have
seen, to place the collection and the original composition of the
Sanhitâ, of Rig-Vedic hymns, earlier than 1,200 to 1,500 before
our era!l Whom ought we to believe; and which of the two is the
better informed? Cannot this gap of several thousand years be closed,
or would it be equally difficult for either of the two cited authorities
to give data which would be regarded by science as thoroughly convincing?
It is as easy to reach a false conclusion by the modern inductive
method as to assume false premises from which to make deductions.
Doubtless Professor Max Müller has good reasons for arriving
at his chronological conclusions. But so has Dayánund Saraswati
Pandit. The gradual modifications, development and growth of the
Sanskrit language are sure guides enough for an expert philologist.
But, that there is a possibility of his having been led into error
would seem to suggest itself upon considering a certain argument
brought forward by Swami Dayánund. Our respected friend and
teacher maintains that both Professor Müller and Dr. Wilson
have been solely guided in their researches and conclusion by the
inaccurate and untrustworthy commentaries of Sayana, Mahidar, and
Uvata, commentaries which differ diametrically from those of a far
earlier period as used by himself in connection with his great work
the Veda Bhashya. A cry was raised at the outset of this publication
that Swami's commentary is calculated to refute Sayana and the English
interpreters. "For this," very justly remarks Pandit Dayánund,
"I cannot be blamed; if Sayana has erred, and English interpreters
have chosen to take him for their guide, the delusion cannot be
long maintained. Truth alone can stand, and Falsehood before growing
civilization must fall."2 And if, as he claims, his Veda Bhashya
is entirely founded on the old commentaries of the ante-Mahábháratan
period to which the Western scholars have had no access, then, since
his were the surest guides of the two classes, we cannot hesitate
to follow him, rather than the best of our European Orientalists.
But, apart from such primâ facie evidence, we would respectfully
request Professor Max Müller to solve us a riddle. Propounded
by himself, it has puzzled us for over twenty years, and pertains
as much to simple logic as to the chronology in question. Clear
and undeviating, like the Rhône through the Geneva lake, the
idea runs through the course of his lectures, from the first volume
of "Chips" down to his last discourse. We will try to
explain.
All who have followed his lectures as attentively as ourselves
will remember that Professor Max Müller attributes the wealth
of myths, symbols, and religious allegories in the Vedic hymns,
as in Grecian mythology, to the early worship of nature by man.
"In the hymns of the Vedas," to quote his words, "we
see man left to himself to solve the riddle of this world. He is
awakened from darkness and slumber by the light of the sun"
. . . and he calls it--"his life, his truth, his brilliant
Lord and Protector." He gives names to all the powers of nature,
and after he has called the fire "Agni," the sun-light
"Indra," the storms "Maruts," and the dawn "Usha,"
they all seem to grow naturally into beings like himself, nay greater
than himself.3 This definition of the mental state of primitive
man, in the days of the very infancy of humanity, and when hardly
out of its cradle--is perfect. The period to which he attributes
these effusions of an infantile mind, is the Vedic period, and the
time which separates us from it is, as claimed above, 3,000 years.
So much impressed seems the great philologist with this idea of
the mental feebleness of mankind at the time when these hymns were
composed by the four venerable Rishis, that in his introduction
to the Science of Religion (p. 78) we find the Professor saying:
"Do you still wonder at polytheism or at mythology? Why, they
are inevitable. They are, if you like, a parler enfantin of religion.
But the world has its childhood, and when it was a child it spake
as a child, (nota bene, 3,000 years ago), it understood as a child,
it thought as a child . . . The fault rests with us if we insist
on taking the language of children for the language of men. . .
. The language of antiquity is the language of childhood . . . the
parler enfantin in religion is not extinct . . . as, for instance,
the religion of India."
Having read thus far, we pause and think. At the very close of
this able explanation, we meet with a tremendous difficulty, the
idea of which must have never occurred to the able advocate of the
ancient faiths. To one familiar with the writings and ideas of this
Oriental scholar, it would seem the height of absurdity to suspect
him of accepting the Biblical chronology of 6,000 years since the
appearance of the first man upon earth as the basis of his calculations.
And yet the recognition of such chronology is inevitable if we have
to accept Professor Müller's reasons at all; for here we run
against a purely arithmetical and mathematical obstacle, a gigantic
miscalculation of proportion . . .
No one can deny that the growth and development of mankind-- mental
as well as physical--must be analogically measured by the growth
and development of man. An anthropologist, if he cares to go beyond
the simple consideration of the relations of man to other members
of the animal kingdom, has to be in a certain way a physiologist
as well as an anatomist; for, as much as ethnology it is a progressive
science which can be well treated but by those who are able to follow
up retrospectively the regular unfolding of human faculties and
powers, assigning to each a certain period of life. Thus, no one
would regard a skull in which the wisdom-tooth, so called, would
be apparent, the skull of an infant. Now, according to geology,
recent researches "give good reasons to believe that under
low and base grades the existence of man can be traced back into
the tertiary times." In the old glacial drift of Scotland--says
Professor W. Draper--"the relics of man are found along with
those of the fossil elephant"; and the best calculations so
far assign a period of two-hundred-and-forty thousand years since
the beginning of the last glacial period. Making a proportion between
240,000 years--the least age we can accord to the human race--and
24 years of a man's life, we find that three thousand years ago,
or the period of the composition of Vedic hymns, mankind would be
just twenty-one--the legal age of majority, and certainly a period
at which man ceases using, if he ever will, the parler enfantin
or childish lisping. But, according to the views of the Lecturer,
it follows that man was, three thousand years ago, at twenty-one,
a foolish and undeveloped--though a very promising--infant, and
at twenty-four, has become the brilliant, acute, learned, highly
analytical and philosophical man of the nineteenth century. Or,
still keeping our equation in view, in other words, the Professor
might as well say, that an individual who was a nursing baby at
12 M. on a certain day, would at 12:20 P.M., on the same day, have
become an adult speaking high wisdom instead of his parler enfantin!
It really seems the duty of the eminent Sanskritist and Lecturer
on Comparative Theology to get out of this dilemma. Either the Rig-Veda
hymns were composed but 3,000 years ago, and, therefore, cannot
be expressed in the "language of childhood"--man having
lived in the glacial period--but the generation which composed them
must have been composed of adults, presumably as philosophical and
scientific in the knowledge of their day, as we are in our own;
or, we have to ascribe to them an immense antiquity in order to
carry them back to the days of human mental infancy. And, in this
latter case, Professor Max Müller will have to withdraw a previous
remark, expressing the doubt "whether some of the portions
of the Old Testament may not be traced back to the same or even
an earlier date than the oldest hymns of the Vedas."
Theosophist, October, 1879
|
