Timeline of Hindu texts



Hindu scriptures are traditionally classified into two parts: śruti, meaning "what has been heard" (originally transmitted orally) and Smriti, meaning "what has been retained or remembered" (originally written, and attributed to individual authors). The Vedas are classified under śruti.

B

 * Max Muller's dating of the Veda illustrates the arbitrariness involved in the production of theories that are then propagated as "facts" in generations of schoolbooks.
 * Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. page 307

K

 * The period between the arrival of the Indo-Aryan in the Indian subcontinent and the composition of the oldest Vedic hymns must have been much longer than was previously thought.
 * Kuiper, F. B. J. 1967. “The Genesis of a Linguistic Area”, Indo-Iranian Journal 10.2-3: 81-102. (Rpt. in International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 3.1 [1974]: 135-153.) Kuiper (1967: 97)
 * quoted in Levitt, S. H. (2012). Vedic-ancient Mesopotamian interconnections and the dating of the Indian tradition. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 93, 137-192.

L

 * It was once said that dates in Indian studies are like bowling pins, set up only to be knocked down later. I do not think that this ought to stop us from making suggestions.
 * S. H. Levitt, "Vedic–Ancient Mesopotamian Interconnections and the Dating of the Indian Tradition", Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 93 (2012), pp. 137-192

M

 * It is quite clear that we cannot fix a terminum a quo, whether the Vedic hymns were composed 1000 or 2000 or 3000 years BC, no power on earth will ever determine.
 * Max Muller, Collected Works, Vol.II, p.91.