S26 On the History and Literature of the Veda. [Aug, 



century before our era, then we may conclude from the nature of that 

 which they have done for the Veda, that several generations must have 

 elapsed between the collection of those texts and them, and that conse- 

 quently this collection cannot fall later than the 7th century. By what 

 probable interval, again, the origin of these songs may have been 

 separated from their collection, is a question which we shall never be 

 able to answer with certainly, but to the solution of which we mav 

 approach tolerably near by means of the share which the compiler has 

 had in producing the present form of the Veda, while this share itself 

 will be on the one hand disclosed to us by the internal marks of the 

 text itself, and on the other by a comparison of the Sama and the Va- 

 jasaneyi. 



How closely all these questions touching the Veda are connected 

 with the history of the Grammar so remarkable for its high antiquity, 

 appears from what has been said above. The Veda was the first object 

 on which it exercised itself; and thus there lie in it united in their germ 

 those sciences which at a later period diverged from each other, viz. the 

 explanation of the Veda, and general grammar, of which for us the 

 oldest representatives (who stand equally high in Indian literature) are 

 Yaska and Panini. 



To the former the Naighantuka, and Nirukta, the sources of all later 

 exegesis are ascribed. That both these are immediately connected 

 admits of no doubt, but I believe that the Naighantuka is older than 

 the Nirukta : the proofs of which I must reserve for another place. 

 Thus Yaska, if the Nirukta belongs to him, could not be also the 

 author of the Naighantuka. The last named little writing is in its 

 first part a Vedic vocabulary, in the second, a collection of the more 

 difficult or unusual words, taken from the text of the Veda, and ranged 

 together without any alteration or explanation. The third part is a 

 collection of the whole of the names of the gods according to their three 

 domains (sthana) earth, air and heaven. The Nirukta itself is nothing 

 else than an explanation of the Naighantuka (hence, too, its name) to 

 the citations of which it adds the passages of the texts, and comments 

 on them. 



People have been hitherto inclined to attribute a very high antiquity 

 to the Nirukta. That it belongs to the oldest part of Indian literature 

 that we possess excepting the Vedic writings, is not to be doubted ; it 



