Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/33

Rh paralleled in the texts of the preceding periods, the religion of the warrior class and of the people generally. It cannot be assumed that the religion thus described is a later development, in point of time, than the Vedic religion, so far as the chief features of this religion are concerned; but much of the mythology is clearly a working over of the tales reported in the period of the Brāhmaṇas, of which, in so far, the epic period is a legitimate successor.

The epic period is followed by that of the Purāṇas, which show undoubted signs of the development of the religion and mythology of the epics. No doubt the material in these texts is often old, and here and there narratives are preserved in a form anterior to that now seen in the Mahābhārata. Yet, on the whole, it is probable that no Purāṇa antedates 600 A.D., and there is little doubt that portions of some of them are much later, falling within the last few centuries. Nor, indeed, is there any definite check to the continuance of this literature: at least two of the Purāṇas have no definite texts, and any author, without fear of positive contradiction, is at liberty to compose a poem in honour of a place of worship or of pilgrimage, and to call it a portion of either of these Purāṇas. This is the literature which, to the present day, contains the authoritative sacred texts of Hindu myth and worship. Yet it is essentially priestly and learned, and the popular religion which it embodies has been elaborated and confused, so that it is necessary, for a clear view of modern Hindu mythology, to supplement the account of the Purāṇas with records taken from the actual observation of the practices of modern India.

Besides the main stream of Hindu mythology there are important currents in the traditions of the Buddhists and the Jains. Buddhism has left but faint traces of its former glories in India itself; undoubtedly from about 500 B.C. to 700 A.D. it must be ranked among the greatest of Indian religions, and in the school of the Mahāyāna, or "Great Vehicle," it developed an elaborate mythology which displays marked orig-