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APPENDIX.
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is hardly likely to succeed in the face of facts which speak for themselves. Old established usage certainly points to the followers of the Vedas having actually followed the sacrificial cult. Even today there are high caste Hindus who perform animal sacrifices with brahmanas officiating as priests. This state of things could never have been openly tolerated in a purely vegetarian creed, and points to a more general prevalence of the cult in the past. Meateating, too, is not uncommon among the Hindus, including the brahmanas; and it has its own tale to tell. It is not that it is eaten in secret ; but that those who take it are not supposed to be any the less Hindus for that reason, though many do not take it by choice. This general recognition of its suitability, as an article of food, could never have been possible in the past, in view of the rigid observance of the rules of good conduct and caste-exclusiveness by all classes of Hindus, unless flesh had come to be sanctioned by some high authority, which cannot but be that of the sacrificial text. We therefore conclude that the Arya Samjist's version is not the true reading of the Vedas.* So far as the English
* To determine the merit and worth of their interpretation still further, we must examine the Aryasamajists' rendering of Agni and Indra which according to Mr. Guru Datta, a follower of 8. Dayananda and the famous author of the Terminology of the Vedas, only imply the science of training horses, or heat, and a governing people, respectively. Mr. Guru Datta challenges the accuracy of the translations of the Vedas made by modern Orientalists, Max Muller and others. and contends that their error has arisen from their treating general terms as proper nouns. European scholars, it will be seen, have followed in the footsteps of certain Hindu commentators-Mahidhara, Sayana and others--but Mr. Guru Datta adheres to the method laid down by Yaska, the author of Nirukta, which consists in reading
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