Page:A Brief History of the Indian Peoples.djvu/77

Rh assailed, and during a space of nearly a thousand years it was overborne by the Buddhists. But throughout twenty-five centuries the Bráhmans have been the writers and thinkers of India, the counsellors of Hindu princes and the teachers of the Hindu people. The education and learning which so long gave them their power, have ceased to be the monopoly of their caste; and may now be acquired by all races and all classes of Her Majesty's Indian subjects.

The literature on ancient India is so copious that it must suffice to name a few of the most useful and most easily available works. Weber's History of Indian Literature is perhaps the most compendious; a new edition of Max Muller's History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (1859) would be a boon to the student, and his Chips from a German Workshop are delightful. Among standard treatises may be mentioned John Muir's valuable translations of Sanskrit Texts (5 vols. 2nd ed. 1868-73); Max Duncker's Ancient History of India; Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde; James Prinsep's Essays on Indian Antiquities; Horace Hayman Wilson's Collected Works; and the writings of Roth, Benfey, K. M. Banarji, General Cunningham, Hoernle, Biihler, and Burnell. Some of the most valuable original Sanskrit texts are now rendered available to the English student in Max Muller's magnificent series of Sacred Books of the East. His new edition of the Rig-Veda-Samhita forms a splendid monument alike to the Indian prince who provided the cost of the work, and to the European scholar who has executed it.