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APPENDIX I
THE RIDDLE OF THE VEDAS
The Vedas are the sacred Books of the Hindus. There are several questions that arise in connection with them. What is their origin, who is their author, what is their authority, these are some of them (questions).
To begin with the first. According to the Hindus they are Sanatana which means that they are “eternally pre-existing”. There is no justification for this view unless it be based upon a statement which occurs in the Atharva-Veda. It says [1] :
“From Time the Rig verses sprang; the Yajus sprang from Time”. But there are other views quite opposed to this.
Starting from the Atharva-Veda it must be noted that besides this view there are two other views propounded in that Veda. The first of these is not very intelligent and may be given in its own language which runs as follows [2] :
“Declare who that Skambha (supporting principle) is in whom the primeval rishis, the rich, saman, and yajush, the earth, and the one rishi, are sustained …. 20. Declare who is that Skambha from whom they cut off the rich verses, from whom they scraped off the yajush, of whom the saman verses are the hairs and the verses of Atharvan and Angiras the mouth”.
The second explanation given in the Atharva-Veda is that the Vedas sprang from Indra [3] .
Explanation of the Rig-Veda is to be found in the Purusha-Sukta. According to it there was a universal sacrifice in which the victim was the mystical being called Purusha and it is out of the sacrifice of this
1 Atharva-Veda XIX 54, 3.
2 Quoted in Muir’s Sanskrit Texts vol. III, p. 3.
3 Quoted in Muir Sanskrit Texts, p.
This is a consolidated chapter on the Riddle of the Vedas dealing with most of the subjects discussed by the author in the earlier chapter Nos. 2 to 6 of this book. In all there are 61 typed pages bearing no corrections at all. This copy is a typed carbon copy.—Ed.