Nevertheless, having found that “there is a natural connection between language and religion”; and that “there was a _common_ Âryan religion before the separation of the Âryan race; a _common_ Semitic religion before the separation of the Semitic race; and a _common_ Turanic religion before the separation of the Chinese and the other tribes belonging to the Turanian class”; having, in fact, discovered only “three ancient centres of religion” and “three centres of language”; and though as entirely ignorant of those primitive religions and languages as of their origin—the Professor does not hesitate to declare “that a truly _historical basis_ for a scientific treatment of the principal religions of the world” has been gained!
A “scientific treatment” of a subject is no guarantee for its “historical basis”; and with such scarcity of data on hand, no Philologist, even among the most eminent, is justified in giving out his own conclusions for _historical facts_. No doubt, the eminent Orientalist has thoroughly proved to the world’s satisfaction that, according to the phonetic rules of Grimm’s law, Odin and Buddha are two different personages, quite distinct from each other, and has proved it _scientifically_. When, however, he takes the opportunity of saying in the same breath that Odin “was worshipped as the supreme deity during a period long anterior to the age of the _Veda_ and of Homer,”(18) he has not the slightest “historical basis” for it, but makes _history_ and _fact_ subservient to his own conclusions, which may be very “scientific” in the sight of Oriental scholars, but yet very wide of the mark of actual truth. The conflicting views of the various eminent Philologists and Orientalists, from Martin Haug down to Prof. Max Müller himself, on the subject of chronology, in the case of the _Vedas_, are an evident proof that the statement has no “historical” basis to stand upon, “internal evidence” being very often a Jack‐o’‐lantern, instead of a safe beacon to follow. Nor has the Science of modern Comparative Mythology any better argument to bring forward to crush the contention of those learned writers who have insisted for the last century or so that there must have been “fragments of a primeval revelation, granted to the ancestors of the whole race of mankind ... preserved in the temples of Greece and Italy.” For this is what all the Eastern Initiates and Pandits have been proclaiming to the world from time to time. And while a prominent Singhalese priest assured the writer that it was well known that the most important tracts, belonging to the Buddhist sacred canon, were stored away in _countries and places inaccessible to the European Pandits_, the late Svâmi Dayanand Sarasvatî, the greatest Sanskritist of his day in India, assured some members of the Theosophical Society of the same fact with regard to ancient Brâhmanical works. When told that Professor Max Müller had declared to the audiences of his _Lectures_ that the theory “_that there was a primeval preternatural revelation_ granted to the fathers of the human race, finds but few supporters at present”—the holy and learned man laughed. His answer was suggestive. “If Mr. ‘Moksh Mooller’ [as he pronounced the name], were a Brâhman, and came with me, I might take him to a _gupa_ cave [a secret crypt] near Okhee Math, in the Himâlayas, where he would soon find out that what crossed the Kâlapani [the black waters of the ocean] from India to Europe were only the _bits of rejected copies of some passages from our sacred books_. There _was_ a ‘primeval revelation,’ and it still exists; nor will it ever be lost to the world, but will reäppear; though the Mlechchhas will of course have to wait.”