वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

446 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. present, can avoid making such a comparison ; and we shall be lightening his task by inserting in this place a few remarks on this subject. According to the view held by Hindu theo- logians, the Vedas are eternal (nitya), without a beginning (anâdi), and also not created by a human author (a-pauru- sheya); and we are told that these attributes have been predi- cated of our sacred books from the most ancient times known to our divines or philosophers. The whole of the third Volume of Dr. Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts is devoted to the discussion of this subject, a number of original passages and arguments bearing on which are there collected, including Sâyaṇa's lucid summary in the introduction to his commen- tary on the Ṛig-Veda ; and more recently the late Mahâ- mahopâdhyâya Râjârâma Shâstri Bodas, the editor of the Bombay edition of the Ṛig-Veda, has done the same in a Sanskrit pamphlet, the second edition of which is now pub- lished by his son, Mr. M. R. Bodas, of the Bombay High Court Bar. I shall, therefore, give in this place only a summary of the different views of Hindu theologians, without entering into the details of the controversy which can be studied from the above books. The question before us is whether the Vedic hymns, that is, not only the words of the hymns but also the religious system found or referred to therein, are the composi- tions of the Ṛiṣhis to whom they are assigned in the Anu- kramaṇikâs, or the ancient Indexes of the Veda, in the sense in which the Shâkuntala is a composition of Kâlidâsa ; or whether these hymns existed from times immemorial, in other words, whether they are eternal and without a beginning. The hymns themselves are naturally the best evidence on the point. But, as shewn by Dr. Muir in the second chapter (pp. 218–86) of the Volume above mentioned, the utterances of the Vedic Ṛiṣhis on this point are not unanimous. Thus side by side with passages in which the Vedic bards have express- ed their emotions, hopes or fears, or prayed for worldly comforts