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of at least 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. But in the Hindu thought our history goes back thousands of years beyond that period.
Western scholarship has given priority in date and in character to the records and monuments of Egypt and of Chaldea. Those records and monuments give simple information and are confined for the most part to the names of kings, the accounts of war and dynasties, and the builders of pyramids. These are interesting to scholars, but shed uncertain light, and little of that, on human progress and civilzation. The contrary is true in relation to Hindu history. It does not abound in the records of thrones, of wars, and the incidents of conquests, but are connected recitals of the advancement and successions of civilizations, the progress of the human mind, and the sacred gious thought and devotion. There are many periods in this history, carrying us back into remotest ages, not inscribed on stones or papyri, but abounding in bymns that embalm the religious thought and aspirations of the people, and in profound works and systems of philosophy, reflecting each era of civilization. This history to which I refer was not committed to stone or to writing of any kind, but was transmitted with particularity and exactness from generation to generation, from century to century, by oral teachings and repetition. I grant
permanency of reli
you
that
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