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

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 459. a chariot by the Ṛiṣhis to whom they are ascribed, and the other stating in equally unmistakable terms that the hymns were inspired, given or generated by gods. 'Dr. Muir attempts to reconcile these two contradictory views by suggesting that the different Ṛiṣhis probably held different views ; or that when both of them can be traced to the same author, he may have expressed the one at the time when it was uppermost in his mind, and the other at another ; or that the Vedic Ṛiṣhis or poets had no very clearly defined ideas of inspiration, and thought that the divine assistance of which they were conscious did not render their hymns the less truly the producation of their own mind.* In short, the existence of a human is not supposed to be incompatible with that of the super-human element in the composition of these hymns. But it will be seen that the above reconciliation is at once weak and unsatisfactory. A better way to reconcile the conflicting utterances of the Ṛiṣhis would be to make a distinction between the expression, language, or form on the one hand, and the contents, substance, or the subject matter of the hymns on the other ; and to hold that while the expression was human, the subject matter was believed to be ancient or superhuman. There are numerous passages in the Ṛig-Veda where the bards speak of ancient poets (pūrve ṛiṣhayah), or ancient hymns (I, 1, 2 ; VI, 44, 13 ; VII, 29, 4 ; VIII, 40, 12 ; X, 14, 15 ; &c.) ; and Western scholars understand by these phrases the poets or hymns of the past generations of Vedic bards, but not anterior to the post-Glacial times. But there are clear indications in the hymns themselves which go to refute this view. It is true that the Vedic bards speak of ancient and modern hymns ; but they often tell us that though the hymn is new (navyasi), yet the god or the deity to whom it is addressed is old (pratna), or ancient, (VI, 22, 7 ; 62, 4 ;

• See Muir O. S. T., Vol. III, pp. 274-5.