Hinduism / by Monier Williams.

  • Monier Monier-Williams
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hinduism / by Monier Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    r9 collected and handed down to us from a period after the Indian branch of the great Indo-European race had finally settled down in the Panjab and Northern India. Sanskrit literature, embracing as it does nearly every branch of knowledge, is entirely deficient in one department. It is wholly destitute of trustworthy historical records. Hence, little or nothing is known of the lives of ancient Indian authors, and the date of their most celebrated works cannot be fixed with certainty. A fair conjecture, however, may be arrived at by comparing the most ancient with the more modern compositions, and estimating the period of time required to effect the changes of structure and idiom observable in the language. In this manner we may be justified in assuming that the hymns of the Veda were probably composed by a succession of poets at different dates between 1500 and 1000 years B.C. Though very unequal in poetical merit, and con- taining many tedious repetitions and puerilities, they are highly interesting and important, as embodying some of the earliest religious conceptions of the Hindus, and throwing light on the earliest history and social condition of the Indo-Aryan race. They are comprised in five principal Samhitas, or collections of Mantras, called respectively Ric, Yajus (containing two Samhitas, Taittiriya and Vajasaneyin), Saman, and Atharvan. Of these, the Samhita of the Ric or Rig-veda, containing 1017 hymns, is the oldest and most important. It is a collection of songs in praise of the personified elements. It is not arranged for any ritual purposes, and it includes hymns, many of
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