The sacred books of India, the Vedas, are generally believed to be the earliest literary record of the Indo-European race.  It is indeed difficult to say when the earliest portions of these compositions came into existence.  Many shrewd guesses have been offered, but none of them can be proved to be incontestably true.  Max Mueller supposed the date to be 1200 B.C., Haug 2400 B.C. and Bal Ga@ngadhar Tilak 4000 B.C.  The ancient Hindus seldom kept any historical record of their literary, religious or political achievements.  The Vedas were handed down from mouth to mouth from a period of unknown antiquity; and the Hindus generally believed that they were never composed by men.  It was therefore generally supposed that either they were taught by God to the sages, or that they were of themselves revealed to the sages who were the “seers” (mantradra@s@ta) of the hymns.  Thus we find that when some time had elapsed after the composition of the Vedas, people had come to look upon them not only as very old, but so old that they had, theoretically at least, no beginning in time, though they were believed to have been revealed at some unknown remote period at the beginning of each creation.

The place of the Vedas in the Hindu mind.

When the Vedas were composed, there was probably no system of writing prevalent in India.  But such was the scrupulous zeal of the Brahmins, who got the whole Vedic literature by heart by hearing it from their preceptors, that it has been transmitted most faithfully to us through the course of the last 3000 years or more with little or no interpolations at all.  The religious history of India had suffered considerable changes in the latter periods, since the time of the Vedic civilization, but such was the reverence paid to the Vedas that they had ever remained as the highest religious authority for all sections of the Hindus at all times.  Even at this day all the obligatory duties of the Hindus at birth, marriage, death, etc., are performed according to the old

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Vedic ritual.  The prayers that a Brahmin now says three times a day are the same selections of Vedic verses as were used as prayer verses two or three thousand years ago.  A little insight into the life of an ordinary Hindu of the present day will show that the system of image-worship is one that has been grafted upon his life, the regular obligatory duties of which are ordered according to the old Vedic rites.  Thus an orthodox Brahmin can dispense with image-worship if he likes, but not so with his daily Vedic prayers or other obligatory ceremonies.  Even at this day there are persons who bestow immense sums of money for the performance and teaching of Vedic sacrifices and rituals.  Most of the Sanskrit literatures that flourished after the Vedas base upon them their own validity, and appeal to them as authority.  Systems of Hindu philosophy not only own their allegiance to the Vedas, but the adherents of each one of them