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APPENDIX V
THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE VEDAS
The Hindus are enjoined to study the Vedas every day the Satapatha Brahmana explains the reasons for it. It says:
“There are only five great sacrifices, which are the great ceremonies, viz., the offering to living creatures, [1] the offering to men, the offering to the fathers, the offering to the gods, and the Veda-offering ( Brahma-yajna ) .
2. Let an oblation be daily presented to living creatures. Thus the offering to them is fulfilled. Let (hospitality) be daily bestowed even down to the bowl of water; Thus is the offering to men fulfilled. Let the oblation to the gods be daily presented [2] as far as the faggot of wood. Thus is the offering to the gods fulfilled. 3. Next is the Veda-offering. This means private study [3] (of the sacred books). In this Veda-sacrifice speech is the juhu, the soul the upabhrit, the eye the dhruva, intelligence the sruva, [4] truth the ablution, and paradise the conclusion. He who, knowing this, daily studies the Veda, conquers an undecaying world more than thrice as great as that which he acquires who bestows this whole earth filled with riches. Wherefore the Veda should be studied. 4. Verses of the Rig-veda are milk-oblations to the Gods. He who, knowing this, daily reads these verses satisfies the gods with milk-oblations; and they being satisfied, satisfy him with property, with breath, with generative power, with complete bodily soundness, with all excellent blessings. Streams of butter, streams of honey flow as svadha-oblations to the fathers. 5. Yajush-verses are
1 This sacrifice, as I learn from Prof. Aufrecht, consists in scattering grain for the benefit of birds, etc. See Bohtlingk and Roth’s Lexicon, s. v. bali. In regard to the other sacrifices see Colebrooke’s Misc. Essays, i. pp. 150, 153, 182 ff., 203 ff.
2 In explanation of this Prof. Aufrecht refers to Katyayana’s Srauta Sutras, iv. 1, 10 and Manu, iii. 210, 214, 218.
3 Svadhyayah sva-sakhadhyanam “ Reading of the Veda in one’s own sakha.”—comm.
4 These words denote sacrificial spoons or ladles of different kinds of wood. See the drawings of them in Prof. Muller’s article on the funeral rites of the Brahmans, Journ. of the Germ. or. Sec. Vol. ix. pp. Ixxviii and Lxxx.
This is a six-page typed copy on ‘The Infallibility of the Vedas’ having no corrections or instructions by the author. The latter portion of this chapter is not available.—Ed.