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

PREHISTORIC TIMES. 5
direction. “It was” he says “mainly a destructive work,” and
concludes his book with the observation that “the whilom
tyranny of the Sanskritists is happily overpast, and it is seen that
hasty philological deductions require to be systematically checked
by the conclusions of prehistoric archæology, craniology, an-
thropology, geology and common sense.” Had the remark not
been used as a peroration at the end of the book, it would
certainly be open to the objection that it unnecessarily deprecates
the labours of the comparative mythologists and philologists.
In every department of human knowledge old conclusions have
always to be revised in the light of new discoveries, but for that
reason it would never be just to find fault with those whose
lot it was to work earlier in the same field with scanty and
insufficient materials.
But whilst the conclusions of the philologists and mytholo-
gists are thus being revised in the light of new scientific dis-
coveries, an equally important work yet remains to be done. It
has been stated above that the discovery of the Vedic literature
imparted a fresh impulse to the study of myths and legends.
But the Vedas themselves, which admittedly form the oldest
records of the Aryan race, are as yet imperfectly understood.
They had already grown unintelligible to a certain extent even
in the days of the Brâhmanas several centuries before Christ,
and had it not been for the labours of Indian Etymologists
and Grammarians, they would have remained a sealed book
upto the present time. The Western Scholars have indeed deve-
loped, to a certain extent, these Native methods of interpretation
with the aid of facts brought to light by comparative philo-
logy and mythology. But no etymological or philological analysis
can help us in thoroughly understanding a passage which contains
ideas and sentiments foreign or unfamiliar to us. This is one of the
principal difficulties of Vedic interpretation. The Storm or the Dawn