Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c10.21

c10.21

A reason assigned for the lack is that ‘the Brahmans, whose task it would naturally have been to record great deeds, had early embraced the doctrine that all action and existence are a positive evil, and could therefore have felt but little inclination to chronicle historical events’.¹ But, as already pointed out, that was not the task of the brahmans but of the sūtas, and what they preserved was incorporated in the Puranas. When the literature of tradition passed into brahmanic custody later, the brahmans were prevented in two ways; first, since the Puranas dealt with ancient tradition, they could not incorporate into them the doings of later kings; and secondly, the above reason applied from the time when the brahmans embraced that doctrine, namely, in and after the age of the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads, when, according to tradition as already explained, Puranas had been compiled.² Thenceforward they added no fresh historical events beyond incorporating the account of the dynasties of the Kali age. That doctrine, and its consequence that men should strive to be rid of further existence, was later than the Rigvedic age. The primitive doctrine was different. Asceticism has been practised ardently in India at all times, but its object varied. Under that doctrine it became the means of training the body and mind to a condition which ended virtually in non-existence; but in ancient times the rishis aimed at acquiring superhuman faculties and powers or the reputation of possessing them, and asceticism was the means by which that could be attained. During all that time it was the sūtas who preserved tradition.