Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/297

 the epic has as a historical background an ancient conflict between the two neighbouring tribes of the Kurus and Panchālas, who finally coalesced into a single people. In the Yajurvedas these two tribes already appear united, and in the Kāṭhaka King Dhṛitarāshṭra Vaichitravīrya, one of the chief figures of the Mahābhārata is mentioned as a well-known person. Hence the historical germ of the great epic is to be traced to a very early period, which cannot well be later than the tenth century B.C. Old songs about the ancient feud and the heroes who played a part in it, must have been handed down by word of mouth and recited in popular assemblies or at great public sacrifices.

These disconnected battle-songs were, we must assume, worked up by some poetic genius into a comparatively short epic, describing the tragic fate of the Kuru race, who, with justice and virtue on their side, perished through the treachery of the victorious sons of Pāṇḍu, with Kṛishṇa at their head. To the period of this original epic doubtless belong the traces the Mahābhārata has preserved unchanged of the heroic spirit and the customs of ancient times, so different from the later state of things which the Mahābhārata as a whole reflects. To this period also belongs the figure of Brahmā as the highest god. The evidence of Pāli literature shows that Brahmā already occupied that position in Buddha's time. We may, then, perhaps assume that the original form of our epic came into being about the fifth century B.C. The oldest evidence we have for the existence of the Mahābhārata in some shape or other is to be found in Āçvalāyana's Gṛihya Sūtra, where a Bhārata and Mahābhārata are mentioned. This would also point to about the fifth century B.C.