own Sutras;
and as the Brahma_n_as are presupposed by the Sutras, while no Sutra is
ever quoted by the Brahma_n_as, it is clear that the period of the
Brahma_n_a literature must have preceded the period of the Sutra
literature. There are, however, old and new Brahma_n_as, and there are in
the Brahma_n_as themselves long lists of teachers who handed down old
Brahma_n_as or composed new ones, so that it seems impossible to
accommodate the whole of that literature in less than two centuries, from
about 800 to 600 B.C. Before, however, a single Brahma_n_a could have been
composed, it was not only necessary that there should have been one
collection of ancient hymns, like that contained in the ten books of the
Rig-veda, but the three or four classes of priests must have been
established, the officiating priests and the choristers must have had their
special prayer-books, nay, these prayer-books must have undergone certain
changes, because the Brahma_n_as presuppose different texts, called sakhas,
of each of these prayer-books, which are called the Ya_g_ur-veda-sanhita,
the Sama-veda-sanhita, and the Atharva-veda-sanhita. The work of collecting
the prayers for the different classes of priests, and of adding new hymns
and formulas for purely sacrificial purposes, belonged probably to the
tenth century B.C., and three generations more would, at least, be required
to account for the various readings adopted in the prayer-books by
different sects, and invested with a kind of sacred authority, long before
the composition of even the earliest among the Brahma_n_as. If, therefore,
the years from about 1000 to 800 B.C. are assigned to this collecting age,
the time before 1000 B.C. must be set apart for the free and natural
growth of what was then national and religious, but not yet sacred and
sacrificial poetry. How far back this period extends it is impossible to
tell; it is enough if the hymns of the Rig-veda can be traced to a period
anterior to 1000 B.C.

Much in the chronological arrangement of the three periods of Vedic
literature that are supposed to have followed the period of the
original growth of the hymns, must of necessity be hypothetical, and
has been put forward rather to invite than to silence criticism. In
order to discover truth, we must be truthful ourselves, and must
welcome those who point out our errors as heartily as those who
approve and confirm our discoveries. What seems, however, to speak
strongly in favou