"According to Aurobindo (1956): In ancient times the Veda was revered as a sacred book of wisdom, a great mass of inspired poetry, the work of Rishis, seers and sages. . . . Truth . . . not of an ordinary but of a divine inspiration and source. Is this all legend and moonshine, or a groundless and even nonsensical tradition? . . . The European scholars . . . went on to make their own etymological explanation of the words, or build up their own conjectural meanings of the Vedic verses and gave a new presentation often arbitrary and imaginative. What they sought for in the Veda was the early history of India, its society, institutions, customs, a civilisation- picture of the times. They invented the theory based on the difference of languages of an Aryan invasion from the north. . . . The Vedic religion was in this account only a worship of Nature-Gods full of solar myths and consecrated by sacrifices and a sacrificial liturgy primitive enough in its ideas and contents, and it is these barbaric prayers that are the much vaunted, haloed and apotheosized Veda."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Vedas
23 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Vedas →
Related Quotes
"I find that Shankara had grasped much of Vedantic truth, but that much was dark to him. I am bound to admit what he r…"
"Modern Philology is an immense advance on anything we have had before the nineteenth century. It has introduced a spi…"
"The Vedas haunt me. In them I have found eternal compensation, unfathomable power, unbroken peace."
"I can venture to affirm, without meaning to pluck a leaf from the never-fading laurels of our immortal Newton, that t…"
"For the Veda is tainted by three faults of untruth, self-contradiction, and tautology; then again the impostors who c…"
"The whole character of these compositions and the circumstances under which, from internal evidence, they appear to h…"
"Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated me. In the …"
"What extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like the light of a higher and purer luminary, which describes a …"
"One sentence of Vedas is worth the State of Massachusetts many times over."
"The people sing reverent praise to Thee (Indra) for strength: With terrors trouble Thou the foe"