The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c20.4

v1.c20.4

The Epics supply the model both for language and form which is followed by the Law-books and the Purāṇas. Their source is to be traced to the traditional recitations of bards who were neither priests nor scholars. Their language is thus naturally more popular in character and less regular than Classical Sanskrit¹. In many respects it does not conform to the laws laid down by the grammarians, and is ignored by them. This became the conventional language of epic poetry, which was used also in the Law-books, the subject-matter of which was taken to a great extent from the Sūtras, and in the Purāṇas, which, as they stand at present, belong to a period not earlier than the fourth century A.D. The metres of the Law-books and the Purāṇas are also substantially those of the Epic poems.