Hindu texts

Hindu texts y are broadly considered Hindu scriptures. These include the Puranas, Itihasa and Vedas. Scholars hesitate in defining the term "Hindu scriptures" given the diverse nature of Hinduism, but many list the Bhagavad Gita and the Agamas as Hindu scriptures, and Dominic Goodall includes Bhagavata Purana and Yajnavalkya Smriti in the list of Hindu scriptures as well.

Quotes

• [Hindu lore, like the Mahābhārata, ] “must have already been current in some form (…) as many have realized, the Vedic texts relate only a small part of the culture of the Vedic period. But it is much less recognized how much comparison can do to fill out the picture, and identify the material that bypassed the Vedas.”
  • Nick Allen: “Why the Telemachy? Vyasa’s answer”, Nouvelle Mythologie Comparée, 2016) as quoted in [1]

• By his [= Playfair’s] attempt to uphold the antiquity of Hindu books against absolute facts, he thereby supports all those horrid abuses and impositions found in them, under the pretended sanction of antiquity. Nay, his aim goes still deeper, for by the same means he endeavours to overturn the Mosaic account, and sap the very foundation of our religion: for if we are to believe in the antiquity of Hindu books, as he would wish us, then the Mosaic account is all a fable, or a fiction.
  • John Bentley: Hindu Astronomy, republished by Shri Publ., Delhi 1990, p.xxvii; also discussed by Richard L. Thompson: “World Views: Vedic vs. Western”, The India Times, 31-3-1993. On p.111, we find that Bentley has "proven" that Krishna was born on 7 August in AD 600 (the most conservative estimate elsewhere is the 9th century BC), and on p.158ff., that Varaha Mihira (AD 510-587) was a contemporary of the Moghul emperor Akbar (r.1556-1605). quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan., also in Elst, Koenraad (2007). Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate.

• As an experiment, therefore, though as no more than an experiment, we propose to fix the years 600 and 200 B.C. as the limits of that age during which the Brahmanic literature was carried on in the strange style of Sutras.
  • Max Muller A History Of Ancient Sanskrit Literature in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 12

• Max Mulller (1892), who hastily acknowledged that he had only considered his date for the Veda a terminus ad quern, completely submitted to his detractors: "I need hardly say that I agree with almost every word of my critics. I have repeatedly dwelt on the hypothetical character of the dates. . . . All I have claimed for them has been that they are minimum dates . . . Like most Sanskrit scholars, I feel that 200 years . . . are scarcely sufficient to account for the growth of the poetry and religion ascribed to the Khandas period" (xiv-xv). A few years later, at the end of his long and productive life, he again acknowledged the complete arbitrariness of his previous calculations: "Whether the Vedic hymns were composed 1000, or 1500, or 2000, or 3000 years B.C., no power on earth will ever determine" (Muller 1891, 91).
  • Max Muller ** in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 12

• Whitney ([1874] 1987) had made a point of mentioning that Muller himself had made no pretensions that his dates had "in any essential manner contributed to the final settlement of the question." But his concern is that Muller "is in danger of being misunderstood as doing so; we have already more than once seen it stated that 'Muller has ascertained the date of the Vedas to be 1200-1000 B.C.'" (78).
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 12

• As Varma (1984) states, "it is amazing to note that all the supporters of the date 1200-1000 B.C. for the Veda very conveniently ignore the caution which Max Muller had initially observed" (6). Indeed, we find present-day scholars stating that "Max Muller's chronological estimate, though not devoid of weak points, has . . . often been more or less tacitly regarded as nearest the mark. . . . As far as the Rgveda is concerned [his] computation is not unreasonable" (Gonda 1975, 22).
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 12