Note 135 — Chapter III

That the main portions of the Epos in their present form cannot be older, is clear from the views of the worship of Vishnu and Çiva which prevail in the poem. These forms of worship first obtained currency in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. (see below). It is also clear from the identification of Vishnu and Krishna, of Rama and Vishnu; the deeply felt Brahmanic anti-Buddhist tendencies, seen in such a marked manner in the Ramayana; the form of philosophic speculation, and the application of astrology, which are characteristic of the Epos in its present state; and finally from the mention of the Yavanas as the allies of the Kurus, and Dattamira, i. e. Demetrius, the king of the Yavanas. This king reigned in Bactria in the first half of the second century B.C. (Lassen, loc. cit. 1, 557). Another king of the Yavanas who is mentioned is Bhagadatta, i. e. apparently, Apollodotus, the founder of the Græco-Indian kingdom in the second half of the first century B.C. (Von Gutschmid, "Beiträge," s. 75). We are led to the same result by the descriptions of Indian buildings, of paved roads and lofty temples, which were first built by the Brahmans in opposition to the stupas of the Buddhists. Lassen places the important pieces of the Mahabharata, in their present form, between Kalaçoka and Chandragupta, i. e. between 425-315 B.C. (loc. cit. 12, 589 ff.) Benfey places them in the third century B.C., A. Weber in the first century. The Mahabharata, which according to the statement found in the poem (1, 81) originally had only 8,800 double-verses, now numbers 100,000: A. Weber, "Acad. Vorlesungen," s. 176. The old form of the Mahabharata is much anterior to the fifth century B.C.; certain passages of the present poem are much later: A. Weber, "Indische Skizzen," s. 37, 38. When Dion Chrysostom remarks (2, 253, ed. Reiske) that the Homeric poems were sung by the Indians in their own language—the sorrows of Priam, the lamentation of Hecuba and Andromache, the bravery of Achilles and Hector—Lassen is undoubtedly right in referring this statement to the Mahabharata, and putting Dhritarashtra in the place of Priam, Gandhari and Draupadi in the place of Andromache and Hecuba, Arjuna and Suyodhana or Karna in the place of Achilles and Hector ("Alterth." 22, 409). It is doubtful whether the remark of Chrysostom is taken from Megasthenes. That the Ramayana is later in style than the Mahabharata will become clear below.