After having thus carefully examined all the traces of supposed foreign influences that have been brought forward by various scholars, I think I may say that there really is no trace whatever of any foreign influence in the language, the religion, or the ceremonial of the ancient Vedic literature of India. As it stands before us now, so it has grown up, protected by the mountain ramparts in the north, the Indus and the Desert in the west, the Indus or what was called the sea in the south, and the Ganges in the east. It presents us with a home-grown poetry and a home-grown religion; and history has preserved to us at least this one relic, in order to teach us what the human mind can achieve if left to itself, surrounded by a scenery and by conditions of life that might have made man's life on earth a paradise, if man did not possess the strange art of turning even a paradise into a place of misery.[149] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 127: If we applied the name of literature to the cylinders of Babylon and the papyri of Egypt, we should have to admit that some of these documents are more ancient than any date we dare as yet assign to the hymns collected in the ten books of the Rig-Veda.] [Footnote 128: Ã na_h_ bhara vyá_ñg_anam gãm á_s_vam abhyá_ñg_anam Sá_k_â manã hira_n_yáyâ.] [Footnote 129: Grassman translates, "Zugleich mit goldenem Geräth;" Ludwig, "Zusammt mit goldenem Zierrath;" Zimmer, "Und eine Manâ gold." The Petersburg Dictionary explains manâ by "ein bestimmtes Geräth oder Gewicht" (Gold).] [Footnote 130: According to Dr. Haupt, Die Sumerisch-akkadische Sprache, p. 272, mana is an Akkadian word.] [Footnote 131: According to the weights of the lions and ducks preserved in the British Museum, an Assyrian mina was = 7747 grains. The same difference is still preserved to the present day, as the _man_ of Shiraz and Bagdâd is just double that of Tabraz and Bushir, the average of the former being 14.0 and that of the latter only 6.985. See Cunningham, "Journal of the Asiatic Society," Calcutta, 1881, p. 163.] [Footnote 132: Preface to the fourth volume of my edition of the Rig-Veda, p. li.] [Footnote 133: Vai_s_vadevam on the full-moon of Phalguna, Varu_n_apraghâsâ_h_ on the full-moon of Ashâ_dh_a, Sâkamedhâ_h_ on the full-moon of K_ri_ttikâ, see Boehtlingk, Dictionary, s. v.] [Footnote 134: See Vish_n_u-sm_ri_ti, ed. Jolly LIX. 4; Ãryabha_t_a, Introduction.] [Footnote 135: See Preface to vol. iv. of Rig-Veda, p. li. (1862).] [Footnote 136: See Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, pp. 352-357.] [Footnote 137: L. c. p. lxx.] [Footnote 138: See Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. xlvii.]