Page:A History of Civilisation in Ancient India based on Sanscrit Literature Vol 2.djvu/11

PREFACE. vii countrymen have not always accepted my account of Vedic civilisation. Life in the Vedic Age, they hold, was more "spiritual," more pious, and contemplative in its tone and character, and they are scarcely prepared to accept my account of the rude self-assertion and boisterous greed for conquests of the Vedic warriors. On the other hand, some European scholars think that I have represented Vedic civilisation in too favourable a light. M. Barth, who did me the honour of favourably noticing in Paris my chapters on the Vedic Period when they first appeared in the Calcutta Review, expressed his opinion that, my account should be accepted with some degree of caution. And Dr. Kern, who has published a favourable review of the first volume of the present work in a Dutch journal, states that opinion is divided as to the character of the Vedic civilisation. Some scholars delight in describing all that was robust and manly and straight-forward in the character of the Vedic Hindus, while others portray their coarseness and imperfections. Dr. Kern is of opinion that I have adhered to the first school of opinion, but that the truth lies midway.

I am not aware that I have tried to keep back the robust rudeness—coarseness if you like—of the civilisation of the Vedic Age. But I confess that, like most modern Hindus, subject to all the drawbacks of a later and more artificial civilisation, I feel a warm appreciation for the manly freedom of ancient Hindu civilisation and life. I have sought to portray this prominently in my account of the Vedic Period; and in my description of later ages I have not hesitated to point out emphatically and repeatedly how much we lack in all that was