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RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE JAINAS
and Stras of the Jainas.
It is conceded by some learned scholars such as Prof. Max Muller, Prof. Weber and Prof. Whitney, not to mention others, that the Vedic hymns of India date from 1500 to 2000 before Christ, whilst the distinguished doctor Martin Haug gives credit for the earliest of these sublime productions to remoter date.
The argument for the more ancient history of India than the date of the Vedas, that is to say, the committal of the Vedic hymns to writing which is conceded to have been done two thousand years before the birth of Christ, will be found in the study and comprehension of the Vedas themselves. In their composition, in the fullness of expression, in the sublimity of thought, in the perfection of imaginary and in the simplicity of detail, they show a lineage and point to evolutions, gradations and acquired perfections, that imply untold centuries of human development in thought, in speech, in art, in religion, in philosophy and in all the considerable factors of great but unrecorded civilizations. Such monuments of learning, both subtle and simple, suggesting a knowledge of Nature and of man which only centuries upon centuries of growth can answer for, cannot be considered as modern as similar monuments of Egypt, of Greece, or of the Hebrew nation but must antedate them all and in a sense which will yet be appreciated, prove to be their mother.
As to the Vedas Western scholars say that they are the infant outpourings of the simple-minded Aryans of ancient times. They also think that they constituted the popular literature of the time. I differ from these views. The Vedic literature is pre-eminently sacerdotal and in no sense a popular one. Neither in the language nor in the thought of the Rg-Veda can we discover that quality of primitive natural simplicity which so many are fain to see in it. The poetry it contains is of a singularly refined character and artificially elaborated, full of allusions and reticences, of pretensions to inysticism and philosophic thought; and the manner of its expression is such
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