THE ARYA SAMAJ. 



97 



scripture of true knowledge " must contain " the basic 

 principles of all sciences," and accordingly that every 

 scientific discovery and invention of modern times must be 

 taught, germinally at least, in the Vedas. The science of the 

 West, then, is but the realization of the scientific programme 

 intuited by the seers of the East, over 100,000,000,000 years 

 ago. To the ancient East belonged the faculty of seeing ; to 

 the modern West belongs the faculty of doing. The programme 

 comes from the East ; the realization from the West. Thus the 

 West in realizing the principles laid down in the A^edas is 

 following unconsciously the Vedic religion. A pamphlet has 

 just come to hand, issued by the Arya Samaj, and bearing the 

 title, The Source of the Christian Religion is Buddhism. 

 Its fundamental thesis is that all religions have their source in 

 the Vedas, and that diversities in religion are due to the 

 influence of different environments upon the primitive Vedic 

 revelation.* 



The principle that all the sciences have their revealed 

 source in the Vedas is here enlarged by the further principle 

 that all religions find their original and inspired source in the 

 same early literature. In this way Swami Dayanand sought to 

 render to the East the things which belong to the East, and to 

 the West the things which belong to the West. It may 

 readily be imagined what kind of interpretation is involved in 

 the attempt to find in the Vedas the results of modern 

 scientific invention such as steam engines and gunpowder, the 

 electric telegraph and X-rays, cannon and ocean steamers. It 

 is a highly subjective and fanciful interpretation, not recog- 

 nized as legitimate by a single Sanskrit scholar, either Indian 

 or European, outside of the Arya Samaj. It is an interpreta- 

 tion which disregards at will the grammatical distinctions of 

 mood and tense, number and person, active and passive. In a 

 word, it is interpretation in the interests of a theory, tlie 

 theory, namely; that the Vedas teach a pure monotheism and 

 contain " the basic principles of all the sciences." It is as if 

 one should attempt to find a pure monotheism and a complete 

 programme of scientific inventions in Homer's Iliad or Virgil's 

 jEneid. Every historical allusion in the Vedas is carefully 

 explained away on the ground that " the Vedas being Divine 

 revelation, expound the laws of existence in its various 



Compare the doctrine of "primitive revelation" held by some 

 Christians. 



