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 than too wide, and if we assign but two hundred years to the Mantra period, from 800 to 1000 B.C., and an equal number to the Chhandas period, from 1000 to 1200 B.C., we can do so only under the supposition that during the early periods of history the growth of the human mind was more luxuriant than in later times, and that the layers of thought were formed less slowly in the primary than in the tertiary ages of the world." The Vedic age, according to Mueller, will then be as follows:-- Sutra period, from B.C.200 to B.C.