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.