1859.] On the Introduction of Writing into India. 145 



was as sacred a duty as the first acquisition. It was by means of 

 this svadhyaya alone that works could be said to live. We meet with 

 similar expressions in other literatures of the ancient world. Ahura- 

 inasda, when he wishes his law to live among men, requres Jima to 

 be not only the "rememberer" (mereta), but the bearer and pre- 

 server (bhereta), of the Zarathustrian revelation. And many cen- 

 turies later, Mahavira,* the founder of the Jaiua religion, is called 

 sdrae, vdrae, and dhdrae of sacred knowledge, i. e. smdraka, a remem- 

 berer, vdra/ca, a guardian who keeps it from profane eyes, and 

 dhdraha, a holder who does not forget the knowledge which he once 

 acquired. 



Even so late a writer as Kumarila, when he speaks of the material 

 existence of the Veda, can only conceive of it as existing in the 

 minds of men. "The Veda," he says, "is distinctly to be perceived 

 by means of the senses. f It exists, like a pot or any other object, 

 in man. Perceiving it in another man, people learn it and remember 

 it. Then others again perceiving it, as it is remembered by these, learn 

 it and remember it, and thus hand it on to others. Therefore, the 

 theologian concludes, the Veda is without a beginning." These 

 theological arguments may be passed over: but immediately after- 

 wards, in order to show that the Veda has a material existence, 

 Kumarila uses another curious expression, which shows again that 

 to him the Veda existed only in the memory of men. " Before we 

 hear the word Veda," he says, "we perceive, as different from all 

 other objects, and as different from other Vedas, something in the 

 form of the Rig-veda that exists within the readers, and things in 

 the form of Mantras and Brahmanas, different from others." Such 



* Kalpa Sutra, ed. Stevenson, p. 29. 



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