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 mentioned. And this feature gradually establishes itself in our minds as a very good differentia of the more modern additions. It would appear that in its earlier versions the poem contained no forced mention of this particular caste, and that, in making the final recension, some care was observed to maintain the purity of the ancient texts, even while incorporating with them new matter and new comments.

The most important question of all however is one on which a new reader will find it hard to imagine himself mistaken. This is the question as to who is the hero of the last recension. Undoubtedly the Mahabharata, as we have it, is the story of Krishna. It is difficult to understand how the theory could have been put forward that the final editing had been Saivite. On the contrary, Mahadeva is represented as speaking the praises of Krishna, while, so far as I am aware, the reverse never happens. This could only mean that Hinduism as it stood was here, in the person of Shiva, incorporating a new element, which had to be ratified and accepted by all that was already holy and authoritative. The Krishna of the national story is indeed Partha-Sarathi the Charioteer of Arjuna—most probably an earlier hero of Dwarka and the war-ballads—but every effort is made, by calling him Keshava and the slayer of Putana, to identify him with that other Krishna, hero of the Jumna, who appears to have been worshipped by the cowherds, a people still half-nomadic as it would