Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c7.24

c7.24

A remote antiquity was thus assigned to the original sūtas, who were royal and other bards and held an honourable position; and that is true because bards existed in various countries in the earliest times and were highly esteemed. It was thus their duty to preserve the genealogies of gods, rishis and famous kings and the ballads about celebrated men¹—which were all matters of ancient tradition; and this statement of their duty refers obviously to the earliest times before the Purana was compiled, because there would have been no genealogies or ballads to collect and fashion into the Purana, unless they had been preserving such ancient traditions all along. The genealogies of kings and rishis are referred to as really existing and as well known to those who were learned in ancient lore.² The sūta had no duty with regard to the Vedas.³