Page:An Essay On Hinduism.pdf/74

 The most important tie which binds most of the people together is, that they generally regard the Vedas as final authority. There is no single Hindu theophratry or caste which denies the authority of the Vedas, and attributes it to any other document. Even Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, did not deny the authority of the Vedas, and even pretended that his teachings were the pith of the Vedas, though his acquaintance with the Vedas was extremely superficial, and I personally doubt very much whether he had any acquaintance with the Vedas at all. For this attitude of Gautama towards the Vedas, Buddhism is considered by many, specially by Hindus, as a Hindu sect. From immemorial times there have been men, like Chārvākas, who denied the authority of the Vedas and even the existence of life after death. They would even say that the authors of the Vedas are liars and rascals. But such people did not attribute final authority to any other document. Moreover, such people have formed a very small minority, as they came mostly from the learned classes, probably from Brāhmaṇas.

Though the Vedas hold so high an authority, people who really read Vedas in India are an extremely limited minority. Among two hundred million Hindus, it is doubtful whether it would be possible to pick out ten thousand Hindus (that is, one in twenty thousand) who may have read even one or two Mandalas of the Rig-Veda in the original. Again, there are very few modern languages in India in which a complete translation of a single Veda, say Rig-Veda, would be available. At least, in Marathi, which is, one of the most important modern languages, there is no complete translation as yet made. The Vedas at present are more or less an arsenal whence are drawn