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Truly, if such were the purport of the Veda, what more would the Veda be than the idle talk of a person out of his mind! Nor finally is there any good in the theory of the soul being Brahman in so far as determined by a limiting adjunct. For this view also is in conflict with the texts which distinguish Brahman as the ruling and the soul as the ruled principle, and so on.
The doctrines he taught were embodied by him in his Satyarath Prakash, which has become the Bible of his disciples, and in his Veda Bashya Basmika, a commentary on the Vedas.
Yet each Veda exists in several recensions handed down by oral tradition in separate schools, and though the exact text and pronunciation are matters of the utmost importance, diversities of opinion respecting them are tolerated and honoured. Further, though the early scriptures were preserved with scrupulous care the canon was never closed.
What was ancient and incomprehensible, was called superhuman, and soon became infallible and beyond assault. If we look at other religions, we find that Buddhism denied the Veda every authority, and in conformity with its own character especially excluded every idea of superhuman revelation. In China, too, we look in vain for revelation.
Thus the Rig Veda is obviously an anthology of hymns and some three thousand years later the Granth or sacred book of the Sikhs was compiled on the same principle. It consists of poems by Nanak, Kabir and many other writers but is treated with extraordinary respect as a continuous and consistent revelation.
Schrader in his catalogue of the Sanskrit MSS. in the Adyar Library, 1908, notices an Upanishad called Mahâmâyopanishad, ascribed to Śaṅkara himself, which deals with the special qualities of the four maṭhs. Each is described as possessing one Veda, one Mahâvâkyam, etc. See Arch. J.R.A.S. 1910, pp. 707-747. Kashmir Sanskrit series, particularly vol. II. entitled Kashmir Śaivism.
The psalms of the Buddhists and even the hymns of the Ṛig Veda were vernacular literature in their day, and in the south the songs of the Devaram and Nâlâyiram are of some antiquity. But in the north, though some Prâkrit literature has been preserved, Sanskrit was long considered the only proper language for religion.
A terrible look of inexpressible anguish and fear was written on the face of Craig's visitor, as she uttered them and sank back, trembling, in the easy chair, mentally and physically convulsed. As nearly as I had been able to follow, Mrs. Veda Blair's story had dealt mostly with a Professor and Madame Rapport and something she called the "Red Lodge" of the "Temple of the Occult."
Even in the oldest of the sacred books, the Rig Veda, composed three or four thousand years ago, where we find hymns addressed to the different deities of the sky, the air, the earth, the rivers, the protest of the human heart against many gods breaks forth from time to time with no uncertain sound."
Gladstone so anomalous, they are those very same unhappy cattle, the clouds, which were stolen by the storm-demon Cacus and the wind-deity Hermes, and which furnished endless material for legends to the poets of the Veda. But the whole subject of comparative mythology seems to be terra incognita to Mr. Gladstone.
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