Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/41

Rh wholly collected and we get them now fully preserved in the Samhitās, it cannot be asserted that a complete picture of the Vedic times can be presented with the help of the mantra material alone. Let me take up a hypothetical case just to illustrate the force of my remarks. Just fancy that a cataclysm sweeps away all that we possess and are proud of to-day, and some historical critics arise, after the deluge, to write a history of our time with the help of such a prayer-book as the Brahma Sangīt of the Brāhmas, or a collection of Rāmprasād's songs, unearthed in the debris of some buildings, will the material be sufficient for the purpose? Will not such an inference on the basis of the hymns and prayers of the Brāhmas, that the Bengalis of our imaginary pre-deluged era were all monotheists of the Brāhma type, be a gross misstatement of fact? Is there anything in the hymns of the Brāhmas to indicate that there is such an institution as the Calcutta University or that this country is being ruled by the British people? Rāmprasād's songs may supply the information that we had such a thing as oil-pressing machine, and that machine was worked by bullocks being blindfolded; but will not this be a very poor picture of the civilization of Rāmprasād's days? We meet with an entertaining passage in a drama of our celebrated dramatist and humourist, the late D. L. Roy, which purports to be a taunting challenge to the effect—should we think that the Gopīs of Brindāban did not know the use of jira marich, since there is no mention of this condiment in the Srimadbhāgabatam? We cannot afford to forget that however much the Vedas relate to the general conditions of life of the ancient times, they are but ideal prayers and hymns, which, again, only a section of the Indian Aryans offered to the gods. There is ample evidence in the very Veda Samhitās, that all the Aryans of India did