hfully to us through
the course of the last 3000 years or more with little or no interpolations
at all. The religious history of India had suffered considerable changes
in the latter periods, since the time of the Vedic civilization, but such
was the reverence paid to the Vedas that they had ever remained as
the highest religious authority for all sections of the Hindus at
all times. Even at this day all the obligatory duties of the Hindus
at birth, marriage, death, etc., are performed according to the old

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Vedic ritual. The prayers that a Brahmin now says three times a day
are the same selections of Vedic verses as were used as prayer verses
two or three thousand years ago. A little insight into the life of an
ordinary Hindu of the present day will show that the system of
image-worship is one that has been grafted upon his life, the regular
obligatory duties of which are ordered according to the old Vedic rites.
Thus an orthodox Brahmin can dispense with image-worship if he likes,
but not so with his daily Vedic prayers or other obligatory ceremonies.
Even at this day there are persons who bestow immense sums of money
for the performance and teaching of Vedic sacrifices and rituals.
Most of the Sanskrit literatures that flourished after the Vedas
base upon them their own validity, and appeal to them as authority.
Systems of Hindu philosophy not only own their allegiance to the Vedas,
but the adherents of each one of them would often quarrel with others
and maintain its superiority by trying to prove that it and it alone
was the faithful follower of the Vedas and represented correctly their
views. The laws which regulate the social, legal, domestic and religious
customs and rites of the Hindus even to the present day are said to be
but mere systematized memories of old Vedic teachings, and are held to
be obligatory on their authority. Even under British administration, in
the inheritance of property, adoption, and in such other legal
transactions, Hindu Law is followed, and this claims to draw its authority
from the Vedas. To enter into details is unnecessary. But suffice it to
say that the Vedas, far from being regarded as a dead literature of the
past, are still looked upon as the origin and source of almost all
literatures except purely secular poetry and drama. Thus in short we may
say that in spite of the many changes that time has wrought, the orthodox
Hindu life may still be regarded in the main as an adumbr