Page 19 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

6 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 • THE ORION

as a general rule, be absolutely fruitless. • In the faflowing pages
I have endeavoured to shew that we need not be so much dis~
appointed. In my opinion there is ample evidence-direct and
and circumstantial-in the earliest of the Satp.hitAs, to fully establish
the high antiquity assigned to the Indian literature on geographical
and historical grounds.t I base my opinion mainly upon references
to be found in the early Vedic works, the SaiPhitas and the Brah~
ma~as, and especially in the earliest of these, the ~ivgeda. For
though later works may sometimes give the same traditions and
references, yet any inference which is based upon them is likely
to be regarded with more or less suspicion. unless we can show
something in the earliest works themselves to justify that inference.
Where the Satp.hitAs and the Blihmallas directly speak of the actual
state of things in their time, there is, of course, no ground to dis~
believe the same, but I think that even the t-raditions recorded in
these works are more reliable than those in later works, for the
simple reason that those traditions are there found in their purest
form. Later works may indeed be used to supply confirmatory
evidence, where such is available; but our conclusions must in the
main be based on the internal evidence supplied by the Vedic
works alone. Several Indian astronomers have worked more or
less on the lines here indicated, but their labours in this direction
have not unfortunately received the attention they ·deserve. The
late Kri~~pa Shastri Go~bole published his views pn the antiquity
of the Vedas in the second and third Volumes of the Theosophist,-:_
.and though he has failed to correctly interpret some astronomical
allusions in the Vedic works, yet there is much that is suggestive
and valuable in his essay. The late Prof. K. L. Chhatre also appears
to have held ·similar views on the subject, but he has not published
them, so far. as I know, in a systematic form. My friend Mr. Shankar
BA!k-;i$h{la Dik~hit, who has written a prize essay in Manlthi on
the history of Hindu Astronomy, and who has succeeded in correctly

• Weber·'& History of Indian Literature, p. 7.
t It is on these gro\lads that Prof. Weber believes that the begin-
Djnga of the India·n Literature "may perhaps be traced bar;k e\·en to
the time when the Indo Aryans still dwelt together with the Persa
Aryans. " Hist. Ind. Lit., p. s.
: .Also published as a separate pampplet.