१३४ भारतीय साम्राज्य. [ भाग आपल्या डोळ्यापुढे उभे राहतें. ह्या सर्वमान्य वेदांच्या उपयुक्ततेविषयी लिहित असतां, विद्वन्मणि प्रोफेसर मोक्षमूलर असे म्हणतात की:- - “ The Veda has a two-fold interest : It belongs to the history of the world and to the history of India. In the history of the world the Veda fills a gap which no literary work in any other language could fill. It carries us back to times of which we have no records any where, and gives us the very words of a generation of men, of whom otherwise we could form but the vaguest estimate by means of conjectures and inferences. As long as man continues to take an interest in the history of his race, and as long as we collect in libraries and museums the relics of former ages, the first place in that row of books which contains the records of the Aryan branch of mankind, will belong for ever to the Rig-Veda." ( Ancient Sanskrit Literature.) अखिल जगाच्या इतिहासांत आदिकाव्य वेदच आहेत अर्से सिद्धवत ठरल्या- मुळे, आतां त्या वेदांविषयीं थोड- क्यांत विवरण करूं. एकंदर वेद चार आहेत. ? ऋग्वेद, २ यजुर्वेद, ३ सामवेद, आणि ४ अथर्व वेद. या प्रत्येकाचे कर्ते १ पैल, २ वैशंपायन, ३ जैमिनि, याप्रमाणे चारवेद.
