Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/327

 Oudh. Divisible into three principal parts corresponding with the chief epochs in the life of Ráma, the Rámáyana treats (1) of Ráma's youthful days, education at the court of his father, Dasaratha king of Oudh, marriage to Sítá, and inauguration as heir-apparent or Crown Prince; (2) the circumstances leading to his banishment, and the description of his exile in the forests of Central Asia; (3) his war with the demons of the South for the recovery of his wife Sita, carried off by their chief Rávana, his victory over Rávana, and his restoration to his father's throne. In the first two portions extravagant fiction is sparingly used; in the last the wildest exaggeration and hyperbole prevail.

The Mahábhárata is an immense collection of legends, so wanting in unity that the episodes occupy three-fourths of the entire poem, the size of which may be imagined from the fact that it contains 220,000 lines, or, reckoning the Iliad, the Æneid, the Divina Commedia, and Paradise Lost as together containing 50,000 lines, considerably more than four times the bulk of all the great European epics put together. In fact, the central story of the Mahabharata, which contains 50,000 lines, or about a fourth of the whole "poem," may be said to equal all these European epics in bulk. In truth, it is not one "poem" at all, but "a compilation of many poems; not a kávya by one author, but an itihása by many authors."

Both the Rámáyana and the Mahábhárata consist of many stories grouped round a central story; but the central story of the Mahábhárata is a slender thread upon which many unconnected legends are strung; while the many episodes of the Rámáyana "never break the solid chain of one principal subject which is ever kept in view." The subject of the central story in the Mahábhárata is a struggle between two families, alike descended