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The language of the Rig Veda is certainly older than the language of any of the Jalna Books, but this may be due to its expression being fixed up by poetry before that of any of the Jaina works, which are known to have existed in memory alone at one time. The test of language is, there-fore, unreliable, in this case, though if there was nothing to contradict it, it would carry the polat a. long way in favour of Hinduism.
But we shall turn to the intrinsic evidence of the oldest Véda. The question is, what was the religion of the people who possessed only the Rig Veda and none of the subsequent Accumulations and accretions of scriptural lore now possessed by the Hindus !
The Rig Veda has been subjected to a great deal of criticism by friend and foe in recent times, but no one has found in its four corners, aught but the worship of such things as Sun, clouds, fire and the like. There is no trace of the essentials of the Hindu Religion, as they are known today, in the hymns of the great Véda. Transmigration and Karma, Renunciation and Aeceticism, and Yoga are not to be found in the Rig Veda or at least have to be spelt out with great care from the text. The summum bonum - Nirvana-itself is not present to the mind in the medley of what appears to be pure Nature worship.
European scholars have, in reality not found anything but superstition and Idolatry in the poetry of the Rig Veda. If this view be taken to be true, then the purport of the Véda, would hardly be termed religion by any thoughtful person seeking to know what salvation implied and how was transmigration to be brought to an end, Karmas broken through, and Nirvāņa attained. As such, it would not be worth the while of a Jaina to seek to establish the greater anciency of his own religion, which, from the earliest times known, has consistently taught the Path to Bliss and Blessedness in Nirvana by the destruction of Karmas For, it is (rankly admitted in Jainism that Superstition and Enl ghtenment are coeval. Indeed the light may disappear from tim to time and re-appear again, but superstition in one form (
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