Page:Monier Monier-Williams - Indian Wisdom.djvu/60

 growth, it became too complex for mere oral transmission, then this Veda resolved itself, not into one single volume, like the Kuran, but into a whole series of compositions, which had in reality been composed by a number of different poets and writers at different times during several centuries.

There is this great difference, therefore, between the Kuran and the Veda, that whereas the reading of the former is regarded as a sacred duty, and constantly practised by all good Muslims, the Veda, even after it had been committed to writing, became absolutely a sealed book to the masses of Hindus, and with the exception of some of the later Vedic works, called Upanishads, is to this day almost entirely unread even by the learned, however much it may be venerated and its divine authority as an infallible guide nominally upheld1.

Of what, then, does this Veda consist ? To conduce to clearness in arranging our examples we may regard it as separating itself into three quite distinct divisions, viz.

"i. Mantra or prayer and praise embodied in texts and metrical hymns.

2. Brdhtnana or ritualistic precept and illustration written in prose.

3. Upanishad, ' mystical or secret doctrine' appended to the aforesaid Brahmana, in prose and occasional verse.

1 The absolute and infallible authority of the Veda is held to be so manifest as to require no proof, and to be entirely beyond the province of reason or argument. Manu even extends this to Smriti (II. 10), where he says,' By iruti is meant the Veda, and by smriti the books of law ; the contents of these must never be questioned by reason.' Nevertheless, the want of familiarity with the Mantras of the Rig-veda is illustrated by the native editions of Manu. That published in Calcutta with the commentary of Kulluka is a scholarlike production, but almost in every place where the Mantras of the Rig-veda are alluded to by Manu (as in VIII. 91, XI. 2.50, 252, 253, 254) errors disfigure the text and commentary.