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It was only towards the close of the eighteenth century that the intrepid sir williams jones, through his acquirment of knowledge of sanskrit, rendered the language and literature of the ancient hindus accessible to european scholars, and only at the close of the nineteenth, that the documents that give the religious thought thereof begam to be published in a european tongue. All though the hundred years that thus passed the elements and character of that religious thought were a problem and constitute a problem sill. Even the course of the states that led up to the secret lore is not clear. The author gives here the course of thought as it seems probable to him after his searcbing the works of our latest scholars. Happily for his purpose, however, the character of thought when the secret lore arose and what the secret lore was, taken in itds simple meaning, are clear. The most wonderful portion of the book constitutes the manner of his adoption of the mode in which we here presents his `selections from the secret lore. " the selections naturally are the piece de resistance of the book, and to enable their understanding the author has added a few nbotes and a vocabularly of certain important sanskrit terms. This main part of the book is presceded by an introduction, and followed up by a nconclusion. The introduction consists of two parts. The former part tracess the sacred tradition from its beginning, on probably, the now-hungarian plain, through the caspain period and the early and later vedic period, to the rise of the secret lore, which is the climax of the veda. The latter part describes the course of development as the author finds it, of the secret lore itself. Size 14 22 cm. PP 38+345. Bibliography, index, appnendices, references, cloth bound, jacket. ISBN 81-7755-098-5
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