Notwithstanding their
present profound ignorance with regard to the early ancestry of the
Indo-European nations, and though no historian has yet ventured to
assign even a remotely approximate date to the separation of the Aryan
nations and the origins of the Sanskrit language, they hardly show the
modesty that might, under these circumstances, be expected from them.
Placing as they do that great separation of the races at the first "dawn
of traditional history," with the Vedic age as "the background of the
whole Indian world" (of which confessedly they know nothing), they will,
nevertheless, calmly assign a modern date to any of the Rik-vedic oldest
songs, on its "internal evidence;" and in doing this, they show as
little hesitation as Mr. Fergusson when ascribing a post-Christian age
to the most ancient rockcut temple in India, merely on its "external
form." As for their unseemly quarrels, mutual recriminations, and
personalities over questions of scholarship, the less said the better.
"The evidence of language is irrefragable," as the great Oxford
Sanskritist says.
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