Page 598 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION 379
that the deities have been called ancient in contradistinction
with the songs offered to them ( VI, 62, 4 ), and are clothed with
Polar attributes, at once enables us to solve the question by
answering that though the wording of the hymns was new, their
subject-matter was old, that is, traditionally handed down to
the poet from remote ages. Thus in a hymn of the tenth
Ma~!fala (X, 72,1-2 ), the poet desiring to celebrate the births
or the origin of gods, thus begins his hymn, " Let us, from the
love of praise, celebrate, in recited hymns, the births of gods,-
any one of us who in this later age may see them, ( ya!z pashydd
uttare yuge ). " Here we have a distinct contrast between the
births of gods on the one hand and the poet who may see
the hymn in the later age on the other, evidently meaning that
the subject matter of the hymn is an occurrence of the former
age ( yuga ), and that the poet celebrates as he perceives or sees
it in the later age. The view that the Vedic hymns, or rather their
contents, were perceived and not made by the ~.i~his, derives
material support from this statement. A similar expression is
also found in VIII, 59, 6, which says "Indra and Varu~a ! I
have seen ( abhi apashyam ) through tapas that which ye formerly
gave to the ~ishis, wisdom, understanding of speech, sacred lore
( shrutam ) and all the places which sages created when
performing sacrifices. "* The notion about the perception Of
the subject-matter of the Vedic hymns is here referred to almost
in the same terms in which it is expressed by Vyasa in the
Mahabharata verse quoted above; and with such express text
before us, the only way to reconcile the conflicting statements
about the human and the superhuman origin of the hymns is
to refer them to the form and the matter of the hymns respec-
tively, as suggested by Patanjali and other scholars. Dr. Muir
notices a passage ( VIII, 95, 4-5 ) where the poet is said to have
" generated ( ajtjanat ) for Indra the newest exhilarating
hymn ( navtyas£m mandram giram ) springing from an intelli-
gent, mind an ancient mental product ( dhiyam pratnam ), full
of sacred truth. "t Here one and the same hymn is said to be
both new and old at the same time; and Dr. Muir quotes

• ~ig. VIII, 59, 6 -WWIT ~ ~ qRt ~Rl ~d+l({'M•il I ~T~
~Jtfrrll~;;okr '11'1\T ~ tfi'Cfliii'EtNtll~~if_ II
t See Muir 0. S. T. Vol. III, p. 239.