Note 20 — Front matter

Max Müller, to whom students of the Rig-Weda owe so much, was nevertheless essentially mistaken in saying that the word weda means knowledge. It does not mean knowledge, in our sense of the word, scientific, Baconian, Aristotelian; an idea quite alien to that of the old hotris. By weda they meant magical knowledge, spells; which being sung or muttered had power to compel the deities: thus the Brahman who possessed the "knowledge" (in the phrase of the Brahmanas, yah ewam weda) was the master of the world.