The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c22.65

v1.c22.65

In the opinion of Sir George Grierson we may make a further induction and assert that the Brāhmanism of the Kurus represents a later tide of immigration as compared with the anti-Brāhmanism of the Pañchālas as earlier Āryan immigrants into India. In a way, the anti-Brāhmanical party may be said to represent the warrior-spirit as opposed to the priestly, which was defeated in the contest but revenged itself by manipulating the epic to its own glory². It is, however, doubtful whether the Pañchālas were earlier immigrants or in early days were regarded as in any way anti-Brāhmanical. The further contention, that this unorthodox warrior-spirit produced the work of the Bhāgavatas and that the Bhagavadgītā emanates from an un-Brāhmanical source, is based upon the supposition that the Bhagavadgītā and its underlying system of Sāṅkhya philosophy is an exponent of the free eastern anti-Brāhmanical or un-Brāhmanical life which produced the great heresies of that region, Buddhism and Jainism. One wishes that the veiled history of Hindu thought might be traced back so clearly, but the data at our disposal do not justify us in so summary a method of reconstructing the past. There is no cogent evidence to show that a difference of religious belief had anything to do with the war, or that any racial antagonism lies behind the division of parties, certainly not of parties opposed as primarily Pañchālas and Kurus.