Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/398



(Appendix A and B will give the reader an idea of the principal arguments advanced by Mr. Tilak in the Orion and the Arctic Home in the Vedas to establish his theories. The Gita-Rahasya being comparatively a recent production is too well-known to require any summary.)

Oriental scholars have advanced vague and uncertain conjectures about the age and character of the Vedas. Prof. Max Muller has divided the Vedic literature into four arbitrary periods, the Chhandas, Mantra, Brahmana and Sutra and by assigning two hundred years for each period he arrives at about 1200 B.C. as the latest date at which the Vedic hymns have been composed. As opposed to this linguistic method of ascertaining the age of the Vedas, there is the astronomical method which though condemned by European scholars as inaccurate and conjectural, can, if properly applied, lead us to good results. The Vedas, the Brahmanas and the Sutras contain numerous allusions and references to astronomical facts. There are several sacrificial hymns in the Rig-veda. Now, no sacrificial system could be developed without the knowledge of months, seasons and the year. It appears that the Vedic Rishis kept up their calender by performing the corresponding round of sacrifices on the