History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c8.s5.1

c8.s5.1

One of the weakest spots in Sanskrit literature is the almost entire absence of any history. Thoroughly permeated with the idea of the unreality of material things, the ancient Brahmans have seldom cared to mark the footprints which kings and dynasties leave upon the sands of time. Their earliest attempts—the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata, and the Purāṇas—are veritable mines of information for the then religious and social life, but as chronicles of political events they seem lamentably full of tale-telling and chronological absurdities. It is my object in the following pages to glean the kernel of historical fact from these authorities by winnowing as far as possible the outer husks of legends.