But the Asiatic occultists,
whose forefathers had her tablets in their keeping, and even some
learned native Pundits--believe they can. The claim, however, is
pronounced unworthy of attention. Of the late Smriti (traditional
history) which, for those who know how to interpret its allegories, is
full of unimpeachable historical records, an Ariadne's thread through
the tortuous labyrinth of the Past--has come to be unanimously regarded
as a tissue of exaggerations, monstrous fables, "clumsy forgeries of the
first centuries A.D." It is now openly declared as worthless not only
for exact chronological but even for general historical purposes. Thus
by dint of arbitrary condemnations, based on absurd interpretations (too
often the direct outcome of sectarian prejudice), the Orientalist has
raised himself to the eminence of a philological mantic. His learned
vagaries are fast superseding, even in the minds of many a Europeanized
Hindu, the important historical facts that lie concealed under the
exoteric phraseology of the Puranas and other Smritic literature.
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