According to Max Müller, the Veda was referred to in India fifteen hundred years before Christ. Consequently it precedes by many centuries even the earliest parts of the Bible:-- "The Vedic hymns come to us as a collection of sacred poetry, belonging to certain ancient families, and afterwards united in one collection, called the Rig-veda-sa_m_hitâ. The names of the poets, handed down by tradition, are in most cases purely imaginary names. What is really important is that in the hymns themselves the poets speak of their thoughts and words as _God-given_--this we can understand--while at a later time the theory came in that not the thoughts and words only, but every syllable, every letter, every accent, had been communicated to half-divine and half-human prophets by Brahma, so that the slightest mistake in pronunciation, even to the pronunciation of an accent, would destroy the charm and efficacy of these ancient prayers."** * Natural Religion, p. 295. ** Max Müller, ibid, p. 558. With a slight variation of language, to suit the special circumstances, nearly all this would apply to the Bible. Christianity, like Brahmanism, like Buddhism, like Mohammedanism, is a book religion. It is "God-given," or revealed, and its Bible has been elevated to a position of infallibility, above the reach of human reason, precisely like the Bibles of other oriental faiths. This sanctification of every thought and word and letter is declared by Max Müller to have been "the death-blow given to the Vedic religion," destroying its power of growth and change. A similar observation is made by Sir William Muir respecting the petrified gospel of the Koran:-- "From the stiff and rigid shroud in which it is thus swathed, the religion of Mohammed cannot emerge. It has no plastic power beyond that exercised in its earliest days. Hardened now and inelastic, it can neither adapt itself nor yet shape its votaries, nor even suffer them to shape themselves, to the varying circumstances, the wants and developments of mankind."*