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The Religion of the Veda
Vaidika in the Dekkhan." Mr. Pandit cites them by
sigla, quite in the manner of inanimate manuscripts,
respectively, as Bp, K, and V. They are, I believe,
now all dead.
22
We are waiting now for the time when the India
Exploration Society shall step out from its existence
on paper, and take hold of the shovel and the spade.
With bated breath we shall then be watching to see
whether great good fortune will make it possible to
dig through the thick crust of centuries that are
piled upon the Vedic period. If so, it will be some-
thing like the revelation of the Mycenean age that
was found at the root of Hellenic civilisation. Until
that time Vedic life and institutions, reported only
by word of mouth, must remain an uncertain quan-
tity. The hymns of the Veda are to a considerable
degree cloudy, turgid, and mystic; taken by them-
selves they will never yield a clear picture of human
life that fits any time or place. We have from the
entire Vedic period no annals except priestly annals,
or such at least as have been edited by priests. It
is as though we relied upon cloister chronicles alone
for our knowledge of the politics and institutions of
a certain time. Or, to use an even homelier compari-
son, as though we had to reconstruct the social
conditions of a more modern time from an inter-
cepted boarding-school correspondence. The poets,