The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c22.6

v1.c22.6

There can be no doubt that, so far as much of their subject-matter is concerned, the epics and the Purāṇas are the literary descendants of the stories and legends (Itihāsas and Purāṇas) which are mentioned in literature from the time of the Atharva-veda onwards; and the particular legend or historical tale (the two are confused) which is embedded in the Mahābhārata or ‘great epic of the Bharatas’ is also not wholly without scholastic affinities. Just as the Brāhmaṇas held the kernel of the Gṛihya Sūtras, so the great epic through its promulgator, as traditionally recorded, is connected with the school of the White Yajurveda. Parāçara is a name especially common in this Veda, occurring often in its genealogical lists; and the epic acknowledges the Çatapatha as the greatest of Brāhmaṇas, while the heroes of the epic are particularly mentioned in the Brāhmaṇa, and indeed in such a way that Janamejaya, prominent in the epic, is treated as a recent personage by the authors of the latter part of the Brāhmaṇa, though the epic treats him as a descendant of the chief epic hero. The explanation of this is not such a mystery as it seemed to Weber, who was unable to reconcile the facts that the same person was the descendant of the later family and yet appeared as an immediate predecessor or contemporary of the earlier. The explanation is simply that at the time of the eleventh Kāṇḍa of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa, Janamejaya to the priestly author was an historical character, while to the epic poet he was legendary, and the poet himself was, if not a bard, a domestic chaplain probably incompetent to analyse history, but anxious to give his tale a noble frame.