Page:Hindu Gods and Heroes.djvu/74

72 bloody battles with the Kauravas and their supporters in the plain of Kurukshētra at last gained the victory, slew the Kauravas, and established Yudhishṭhira as king in Hastināpura. Among the Pāṇḍavas the leading part is played by the eldest, Yudhishṭhira, and the third, Arjuna; of the others, Bhīma, the second, is a Hercules notable only for his strength, courage, and fidelity, while the twins Nakula and Sahadēva are colourless figures, Kṛishṇa plays an important part in the story; for on the return of the Pāṇḍavas to fight the Kauravas he accompanies Arjuna as his charioteer, and on the eve of the first battle delivers to him a discourse on his religion, the Bhagavad-gītā, or Lord's Song, which has become one of the most famous and powerful of all the sacred books of India.

Now if the Mahābhārata were as homogeneous even as the Iliad and Odyssey, which give us a fairly consistent and truthful picture of a single age, we should be in a very happy position. Unfortunately this is not the case. Our epic began as a Bhārata, or Tale of the Bharata Clan, probably of very moderate bulk, not later than 600 B.C., and perhaps considerably earlier; and from that time onward it went on growing bigger and bigger for over a thousand years, as editors stuffed in new episodes and still longer discourses on nearly all the religious and philosophic doc-