The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c7.15

v1.c7.15

| | PAGE |
| The two chief varieties of epic poetry . . . . . . . | 251 |
| Sources of the Mahābhārata . . . . . . . | 252 |
| Narrative and didactic interpolations . . . . . . | 255 |
| The characters partly historical and partly mythical . . . . | 257 |
| Date of the poem in its present form . . . . . . | 258 |
| Features common to the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa . . . | 259 |
| Social conditions in the Sanskrit epics and in Buddhist works of the same period . . . . . . . . . | 259 |
| The story of the Mahābhārata . . . . . . . | 262 |
| The Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa contrasted . . . . . | 264 |
| Earlier and later moral ideals in the Mahābhārata . . . . | 265 |
| Knights, priests, commoners, and slaves . . . . . . | 266 |
| The king and his ministers . . . . . . . . | 271 |
| Religious and philosophical views of the epics . . . . . | 272 |
| Peoples traditionally engaged in the great war . . . . | 274 |
| The genealogies . . . . . . . . . | 275 |