on May 15th, 1863, made with this small instrument, fully bears out the accuracy and ease with which these measurements can be made, and the results of his experiments induced the speaker to express a hope that before long these instruments may be introduced into meteorological observatories.

The determination of the chemical brightness of the various portions of the sun's disc is an interesting application of this new method of photometric measurements.

By help of a camera placed on a 3-inch refractor, the speaker allowed the image of the sun-of about 4 inches in diameter-to fall upon the standard paper. The sun-picture thus obtained presents interesting features; in the first place, the chemical intensity of the central portions are 3-5 times as great as that of the portions on the limb. A difference of this kind, in the case of the luminous and calorific rays, has already been observed by astronomers, and it is doubtless caused by the absorption effected by the solar atmosphere.

The following results were obtained by measuring the chemical brightness at various points on the sun's disc, on May 9th, 1863; from these numbers it will be seen that the luminous intensity varies very irregularly.

Bright patches of considerable area were seen on the picture; these patches, which were not caused by irregularity in the paper or in the lenses, are probably owing to the presence of clouds in the luminous atmosphere of the sun, and they may probably have some intimate connection with the well-known phenomena of the red prominences seen during the solar eclipse.

The speaker concluded by stating that he hoped, with the assistance of his friend Mr. Baxendell, to make a series of regular observations of the variation of the chemical intensities of many points on the sun's surface.

[H. E. R.]

WEEKLY EVENING MEETING,

Friday, May 29, 1863.

COLONEL PHILIP JAMES YORKE, F.R.S. in the Chair.

PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER,

On the Vedas, or the Sacred Books of the Hindus.

PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER began by exhibiting four volumes of his edition of the text of the Rig-Veda, together with the commentary of Sáyanáchárya. He stated that his attention had first been drawn to the importance of this work when attending, in the years 1846 and 1847, the lectures of the late Eugène Burnouf at the Collège de France. It was Burnouf, together with Dr. Goldstücker, now Professor of Sanskrit at University College, who encouraged him to undertake the task of editing the Rig- Veda-a work which had never been printed before either in India or in Europe, though it occupies in the history of Sanskrit literature the same position which the Old Testament occupies in the history of the Jews, the New Testament in the history of modern Europe, the Koran in the history of Mohammedanism. After collecting the necessary materials at Paris, in the Library of the East India House in London, and in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, he was enabled, through the patronage of the East India Company, to publish the first volume in 1849, the second in 1853, and the third in 1856. After the extinction of the political powers of the East India Company, Government continued to sanction the grant, and Her Majesty accepted the dedication of the fourth volume, published in 1862. This edition of the Rig - Veda contains, besides the original text of the sacred hymns of the Brahmans, a commentary in Sanskrit by Sáyanáchárya. This learned theologian wrote about 1400 A.D., whereas the ancient hymns which he professes to expound are referred to the fourteenth century B.C. His commentary is a vast compilation from earlier works, some of which-as, for instance, the Glosses of Yáska--date from the sixth century B.C.

Veda, the name given by the Brahmans to the whole of their sacred literature, means originally knowing, or knowledge, and is derived from the same root which appears in the Greek olda, I know, the Gothic vait, I know; the English to wit and wise. It is considered, according to the theological views of the Brahmans, to have been divinely revealed, and is distinguished under the name of Sruti (literally hearing) from all other works, which, however sacred and authoritative, are admitted to have been composed by human authors, and are comprehended under the name of Smriti, or tradition. The Laws of Manu, for instance, are considered only as Smriti, and if on any point they could be proved to be at variance with a single passage of the Veda

they would at once be overruled. In no country has the theory of revelation been so minutely elaborated as in India; and in order to exclude as much as possible the human element, which, in the perception of divine truth by a human understanding, must come in at some point or other, the Brahmans imagined a graduated scale of beings intermediate between the divine and the human, participating less and less in the divine, and more and more in the human nature, till at last the original perception or vision of the inspired Rishis had reached a purely human level, and had, without loss or injury, become the property of ordinary mortals. The Veda, however, was not allowed to enjoy for any length of time the undisturbed possession of these carefully elaborated claims. The Buddhists and many other heretical sects sprang up and denied the divine character of the Vedas, as well as the sacred privileges of the Brahmans, which rested on the authority of these works. They attacked the Vedas as the incoherent rhapsodies of knaves and buffoons;" they denied " that there was any agreement among the learned in the interpretation of revelation and tradition ;" and they pointed to passages which even the Brahmans themselves had been obliged to admit as meaningless or as interpolated. In the third century B.C. Buddhism became the state religion of India in the place of Brahmanism, and the Buddhists then claimed the same inspired character for their own sacred books which the founders of the religion of Buddha had so violently attacked when claimed by the Brahmans in favour of the Veda. About the seventh century A.D. a reaction took place. Buddhism had to yield to Brahmanism, and at the present moment there is no Buddhist left in India Proper; while the orthodox Hindu again believes that the Vedas were an immediate revelation granted before the beginning of time to certain inspired saints, and containing all that is necessary to his salvation.

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The Veda is not one single book. It comprises four collections of hymns, called the Sanhitás of the Rig- Veda, the Yajur - Veda, the Sama - Veda, and the Atharva - Veda. The Atharva - Veda, though it contains fragments of ancient poetry, is a collection of more modern date. It contains chiefly incantations, magic spells, propitiatory hymns, and large extracts from the other Vedas. The earliest authorities speak only of three Vedas, which are called the Trayî or Triad. Among these, again, a great distinction must be made between the Rig- Veda on the one side and the Yajur and Sáma Vedas on the other. The last two collections of hymns are mere prayer-books, arranged according to the order of certain sacrifices, and intended to be used by certain classes of priests—the Rig-Veda is an historical collection. There are four classes of priests required for the performances of great sacrifices. The first comprises the Adhvaryus, or manual labourers who have to prepare the sacrificial ground, to dress the altar, and slay the victim. These, as being less educated, are only required to mutter certain hymns and formulas, which hymns and formulas in the order in which they are to be recited, are put together in what is called the Sanhitá of the Yajur Veda. The Udgâtars, or choristers, form the second class, and the hymns which they have to chant are again put together

in proper order in the Sanhitá of the Sáma - Veda. But while the hymns to be muttered and chanted by these two classes of priests have been carefully collected in two breviaries, the poetical portions, which had to be recited by a third class, the Hotars, were not reduced to the same form, but the Hotars had to learn by heart the whole of the ancient sacred poetry that had been saved by oral tradition, and incorporated in the books of the Rig - Veda. Many of these poems were never intended for sacrificial purposes, and the Hotars had, therefore, to learn from their sacrificial manuals which of these hymns and verses had to be employed by them at certain parts of the sacrifices, while, at the same time, they became the depositaries of the whole of the popular and sacred poetry of their ancestors. Nearly all the poetical portions which the other two classes of priests have to mutter or to chant are to be found in the Rig - Veda, which is therefore to us the Veda par excellence, and the only document in the earliest literature of India which can claim an historical character. The fourth class of priests are the Brahmans, properly so called, the overseers of the whole sacrifice, who, while they generally remain silent spectators, have only to interfere when any mistake has been committed. They must be acquainted with the duties of the other three classes of priests, and they derive their knowledge chiefly from large prose treatises-hence called the Brahmanas, or the books of the Brahmans-in which the ritual is explained in full detail, and old sayings are preserved to illustrate the origin and the mysterious meaning of every part of the Vedic sacrifices.

The Rig-Veda a collection resembling the Psalms, and, in some respects, the Percy Relics-is divided into ten books or Mandalas, each supposed to have been the property of one of the great Brahmanic families of India. It has been preserved to the present day by oral tradition as well as by manuscripts. Manuscripts, however, are in India of very modern date; and if the Rig- Veda claims to be the oldest book in the literature of the Aryan race-older than Homer, the Zendavesta, the Cuneiform Inscriptions, Ennius, or Ulfilas-we want strong arguments in support of such claims. The speaker stated that he had himself entertained grave doubts as to the antiquity of the Veda, and that its preservation during a thousand years by means of oral tradition only was enough to stagger those who were acquainted merely with the literary history of Greece and Rome. Yet it is a fact that, even at present, candidates for orders in India learn the RigVeda by heart, not from MSS., but from the mouth of a Guru under whose direction they spend the whole of their youth from the eighth to the thirtieth year. They do nothing else during all that time but learn by heart; and if we want to know how accurately the human memory can retain a whole literature-more accurately, in fact, than either paper or parchment-India, even at the present day, with the old system of Brahmanic discipline relaxed and breaking up, will furnish the most startling evidence. That the Veda is not quite a modern forgery can be proved by The Travels of Hiouen-thsang, a Buddhist pilgrim who travelled from China to India in the years

629-645, and who, in his diary translated from Chinese into French by Stanislas Julien, gives the names of the four Vedas, mentions some grammatical forms peculiar to the Vedic Sanskrit, and states that at his time young Brahmans spent all their time, from the seventh to the thirtieth year of their age, in learning these sacred texts. At the time when Hiouen-thsang was travelling in India, Buddhism was clearly on the decline. But Buddhism was originally a reaction against Brahmanism, and chiefly against the exclusive privileges which the Brahmans claimed, and which from the beginning were represented by them as based on their revealed writings, and hence beyond the reach of human attacks. Buddhism, whatever the date of its founder, became the state religion of India under Asoka, the Constantine of India, in the middle of the third century B.C. This Asoka was the third king of a new dynasty founded by Chandragupta, the well-known contemporary of Alexander and Seleucus, about 315 B.C. The preceding dynasty was that of Nandas, and it is under that dynasty that the traditions of the Brahmans place a number of distinguished scholars whose treatises on the Veda we still possess. Thus, in the same manner as the Septuagint translation proves the existence of the Old Testament during the third century B.C., although the oldest Hebrew MSS. date only from the tenth century after Christ, so the works of Kátyáyana in the fourth century B.C., which give us the number of the hymns, the verses, words, and syllables of the Rig - Veda, prove that at this time the Veda existed in exactly the same form in which we possess it. The number of hymns is 1028, that of the verses varies from 10,402 to 10,622, that of the words is 153,826, that of the syllables, 432,000. These Rabbinical studies on the Veda seem to date from about 600 B.C., and they are embodied in works called Sútras or threads, all composed in the most brief, enigmatic, and almost algebraic style. This literature of Sutras is preceded by another class of writings, the Brahmanas, composed in a very prolix and tedious style, and containing lengthy lucubrations on the sacrifices and on the duties of the different classes of priests. Each of the three or four Vedas, or each of the three or four classes of priests, has its own Brahmanas and its own Sûtras; and as the Brahmanas are presupposed by the Sûtras, while no Sútra is ever quoted by the Brahmanas, it is clear that the period of Brahmana literature must have preceded the period of the Sútra literature. There are, however, old and new Brahmanas, and there are in the Brahmanas themselves long lists of teachers who handed down old Brahmanas or composed new ones, so that it seems impossible to accommodate the whole of that literature in less than two centuries, from about 800 to 600 B.C. Before, however, a single Brahmana could have been composed, it was not only necessary that there should have been one collection of ancient hymns, like that contained in the ten books of the Rig-Veda, but the three or four classes of priests must have been established, the manual labourers and the choristers must have had their special prayer-books, and these prayer-books must have undergone certain changes, because the Brahmanas presuppose different editions or sákhâs of each