১৯০ ta ta state, sort social and spiritual life are deeply embedded in our past. The complete history of India has yet to be written, but its culture-history has been fully pre- served in the pages of Sanskrit literature—a literature which is as vast as it is comprehensive, practically embracing the whole sphere of human thought and imagination. The earliest chapter of our literature, known as the Vedas, is a collection of hymns addressed to gods—that is to say, personified forces of nature- which express the sentiments of joy and wonder, of reverence and awe born of the living contact of the human mind with the external universe. For fresh- ness of feeling and vigour of expression, there is noth- ing in any literature which can be compared with these. In them we find also the earliest attempts of the human mind to lift the veil of phenomena and peer into the Reality which is the ultimate basis of all that exists. The Vedas have ever been looked upon by our people as the eternal source of their spiritual and social existence. One thing is certain, that these first words of India indicated the direction in which the Hindu mind was to move, and deter- mined the character of the laws which were to give shape and form to Hindu society, as well as of the philosophy which was to mould Hindu psychology, If the earlier portion of the Vedas was a collection
