"We may reasonably argue that such a fixed form and substance would not easily be possible in the beginnings of thought and psychological experience or even during their early progress and unfold- ing. We may therefore surmise that our Sanhita represents the close of a period, not its commencement, nor even some of its successive stages. It is even possible that its most ancient hymns are a comparatively modern development or version of a more ancient lyric evangel couched in the freer and more pliable forms of a still earlier human speech... The Veda itself speaks constantly of 'ancient' and 'modern' Rishis tpurvebhib... nutanaihy. the former remote enough to be regarded as a kind of demigods, the first founders of knowledge."