Note 28 — I. LECTURE ON THE VEDAS SACRED BOOKS OF THE BRAHMANS,[8]

Professor Roth, after quoting several passages from the Veda in which a belief in immortality is expressed, remarks with great truth: 'We here find, not without astonishment, beautiful conceptions on immortality expressed in unadorned language with child-like conviction. If it were necessary, we might here find the most powerful weapons against the view which has lately been revived, and proclaimed as new, that Persia was the only birthplace of the idea of immortality, and that even the nations of Europe had derived it from that quarter. As if the religious spirit of every gifted race was not able to arrive at it by its own strength.'—('Journal of the German Oriental Society,' vol. iv. p. 427.) See Dr. Muir's article on Yama, in the 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' p. 10.