Page:Ancient Indian Historical Tradition.djvu/21

Rh race dominated all the regions to which we assign the Aryan occupation, while the brahmanic literature contains no inkling whatever of that great transformation.

Vedic literature not only lacks the historical sense as pointed out above (p. 2), but is not always to be trusted in matters that concerned brahmanical claims and pretensions. The greatest brahmanical book is the Rigveda. It is a compilation of hymns composed by many authors and is arranged according to certain principles. It must manifestly have been compiled and arranged by some one or more persons, yet Vedic literature says absolutely nothing about this. The brahmans cannot have been ignorant about it, for they preserved it and its text with unparalleled care; they certainly did not accept and venerate this canon blindly upon uncertain authority, and they must have known who compiled it and established its text. This is made clearer by another fact, namely, that Vedic literature professes to know and declares the names of the authors of nearly all the hymns and even of single verses, yet it ignores all knowledge of the person or persons who afterwards compiled and arranged those hymns. To suppose that, when it preserved the earlier information, it was ignorant of the later work in so vital a matter is ridiculous. Plainly therefore Vedic literature has deliberately suppressed all information on these matters.

Epic and Purāṇic tradition unanimously and repeatedly declares that the Veda was 'arranged' by the great rishi, Parāśara's son Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana, who was consequently renowned by the name Vyāsa. Yet Vedic literature is remarkably reticent about him, for the Vedic Index mentions no such Kṛsṇa, no Dvaipāyana, and the only Vyāsa noticed is Vyāsa Pārāśarya, and all it says about him is that this 'is the name of a mythical sage who in the Vedic period is found only as a pupil of Viṣvaksena in the Vaṁśa (list of teachers) at the end of the Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa and in the late Taittirīya Āraṇyaka.' The Mahābhārata and Purāṇas are full of Vyāsa and habitually refer to him as 'Vyāsa', and it is incredible