The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c24.7

v1.c24.7

In the interval between the Brāhmaṇas and the dramas the Sūta had evidently been deprived of some of the most important of his ancient functions; and this change in his fortunes reflects a change which had taken place in Indian society and in the character of the Purāṇas. In the heroic age, when the Sūta was the chronicler of kings, the Kshatriyas, as we gather from the Upanishads and from early Jain and Buddhist literature, occupied a position of considerable intellectual independence. But this position was not maintained. In India, as in medieval Europe, the priestly power eventually asserted its supremacy, and all the old Kshatriya literature was Brāhmanised. The record of the lineage of princes tended to disappear from the Purāṇas, and its place was taken by endless legends about holy places, or hymns in praise of the divinities who were worshipped there. The Purāṇas had passed from the Kshatriyas to the Brāhmans, from the royal bards to the priests who waited on temples and pilgrims' shrines—a class mentioned with contempt in the law-books (Manu, III, 152). But, in spite of this transference and the radical changes which it involved, some of the old terms and some fragments of the old literature still remained to testify to a state of things which had passed away.