A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

132 THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL.detail, nobodyhas dared to touch them. The commentators came, of course, and tried to smooth them out, andto bring out wonderful new ideas from very old things ;they tried to find spiritual ideas in even the most ordinarystatements, but the texts remained, and, as such, they arethe most wonderful historical study. We all know thatin every religion in later times, as thoughts began to growand develop there came this spiritual progress. One wordis changed here and one put in there another is thrown;out apart from the commentators. This, probably, hasnot been done with the, Vedic literature at all, or if everdone, it is almost imperceptible. So we have this greatadvantage, we are able to study thoughts in their originalsignificance, to note how they are developing, how frommaterialistic ideas, finer and finer spiritual ideas aregrowing, until they attain their greatest height in theVedanta. Some of the old manners and customs are alsothere, but not very much in the Upanishads. The languageis a peculiarterse mnemonic.The writers of these books simply jotted down theselines as helps to remember certain facts which they supposedwere already well-known. In a narrative, perhaps, as theyare telling a story they take it for granted that it is wellknownto everyone they are addressing, and thus a greatdifficulty arises, we scarcely know the real meaning ofanyone of these stories, because the traditions have nearlydied out, and the little that is left has been very muchSo many new interpretations have been putexaggerated.on them that when you find them in the Puranas theyhave become lyrical poems already. Now, just as in the"West,we find one fact in the political development of"Western races :they cannot bear absolute rule, they arealways trying to throw off any sort of bondage, any one