The Vedas

In fact, most Indians in the 18th century knew no Sanskrit, the language exclusive to Brahmins. For centuries, they remained unaware of the hymns of the four Vedas or the idealist monism of the Upanishads that the German Romantics, American Transcendentalists and other early Indophiles solemnly supposed to be the very essence of Indian civilization. --Pankaj Mishra, Another Incarnation, The New York Times, April 24, 2009, review of The Hindus: An Alternative History, by Wendy Doniger