Mueller supposes that writing was unknown when the Rig-Veda was composed.  The thousand and ten hymns of the Vedas contain no mention of writing or books, any more than the Homeric poems.  There is no allusion to writing during the whole of the Brahmana period, nor even through the Sutra period.  This seems incredible to us, says Mueller, only because our memory has been systematically debilitated by newspapers and the like during many generations.  It was the business of every Brahman to learn by heart the Vedas during the twelve years of his student life.  The Guru, or teacher, pronounces a group of words, and the pupils repeat after him.  After writing was introduced, the Brahmans were strictly forbidden to read the Vedas, or to write them.  Caesar says the same of the Druids.  Even Panini never alludes to written words or letters.  None of the ordinary modern words for book, paper, ink, or writing have been found in any ancient Sanskrit work.  No such words as volumen, volume; liber, or inner bark of a tree; byblos, inner bark of papyrus; or book, that is beech wood.  But Buddha had learnt to write, as we find by a book translated into Chinese A.D. 76.  In this book Buddha instructs his teacher; as in the “Gospel of the Infancy” Jesus explains to his teacher the meaning of the Hebrew alphabet.  So Buddha tells his teacher the names of sixty-four alphabets.  The first authentic inscription in India is of Buddhist origin, belonging to the third century before Christ.

In the most ancient Vedic period the language had become complete.  There is no growing language in the Vedas.

In regard to the age of these Vedic writings, we will quote the words of Max Mueller, at the conclusion of his admirable work on the “History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature,” from which most of this section has been taken:—­

“Oriental scholars are frequently suspected of a desire to make the literature of the Eastern nations appear more ancient than it is.  As to myself, I can truly say that nothing would be to me a more welcome discovery, nothing would remove so many doubts and difficulties, as some suggestions as to the manner in which certain of the Vedic hymns could have been added to the original collection during the Brahmana or Sutra periods, or, if possible, by the writers of our MSS., of which most are not older than the fifteenth century.  But these MSS., though so modern, are checked by the Anukramanis.  Every hymn which stands in our MSS. is counted in the Index of Saunaka, who is anterior to the invasion of Alexander.  The Sutras, belonging to the same period as Saunaka, prove the previous existence of every chapter of the Brahmanas; and I doubt whether there is a single hymn in the Sanhita of the Rig-Veda which could not be checked by some passage of the Brahmanas and Sutras.  The chronological limits assigned to the Sutra and Brahmana periods will seem to most Sanskrit scholars too narrow rather