As to the actual date of the Veda, I readily granted that chronologically it was not so old as the pyramids, but supposing it had been, would that in any way have increased its value for our studies? If we were to place it at 5000 B. C., I doubt whether anybody could refute such a date, while if we go back beyond the Veda, and come to measure the time required for the formation of Sanskrit and of the Proto-Aryan language I doubt very much whether even 5,000 years would suffice for that. There is an unfathomable depth in language, layer following after layer, long before we arrive at roots, and what a time and what an effort must have been required for their elaboration, and for the elaboration of the ideas expressed in them. Our battles waxed sometimes very fierce, but we generally ended by arriving at an understanding. As a young man, Bunsen had clearly perceived the importance of the Veda for an historical study of mankind and the growth of the human mind, but he was not discouraged when he saw that it gave us less than had been expected. “It is a fortress,” he used to say, “that must be besieged and taken, it cannot be left in our rear.” But he little knew how much time it would take to approach it, to surround it, and at last to take it. It has not been surrendered even now, and will not be in my time. It is true there are several translations of the whole of the Rig-veda, and their authors deserve the highest credit for what they have done. People have wondered why I have not given one of them in my Sacred Books of the East. I thought it was more honest to give, in co-operation with Oldenburg, specimens only in vols. xxxii and xlvi of that series, and let it be seen in the notes how much uncertainty there still is, and how much more of hard work is required, before we can call ourselves masters of the old Vedic fortress. Bunsen’s interest in my work, however, took a more practical turn than mere encouragement. It was no good encouraging me to copy and collate Sanskrit MSS. if they were not to be published. He saw that the East India Company were the proper body to undertake that work. Bunsen’s name was a power in England, and his patronage was the very best introduction that I could have had. It was no easy task to persuade the Board of Directors—all strictly practical and commercial men—to authorize so considerable an expenditure, merely to edit and print an old book that none of them could understand, and many of them had perhaps never even heard of. Bunsen pointed out what a disgrace it would be to them, if some other country than England published this edition of the Sacred Books of the Brahmans.