"I need hardly say that I agree with almost every word of my critics. I have repeatedly dwelt on the merely hypothetical character of the dates, which I have ventured to assign to first periods of Vedic literature. All I have claimed for them has been that they are minimum dates, and that the literary productions of each period which either still exist or which formerly existed could hardly be accounted for within shorter limits of time than those suggested. ... If now we ask as to how we can fix the dates of these periods, it is quite clear that we cannot hope to fix a terminum a qua [sic]. Whether the Vedic hymns were composed [in] 1000 or 2000 or 3000 years BC, no power on earth will ever determine."