Geographical and Economic Studies in the Mahabharata: Upayana Parva c5.102

c5.102

That was the period of the Brāhmanical revival. It is perhaps in this period that the Pāṇḍus the heroes of the Mahābhārata first appear in a *vārtika* or supplementary rule to Pāṇini (IV, I, 44) attributed to Kātyāyana (180 B.C.). It is also in the second century B.C. that we find unmistakable allusions to what we may call an epic poem in the account of the *Mahābhāṣya*, which alludes to the poetic treatment of the epic and speaks of the epic characters.⁶⁵ It seems that this was the formative period of the epic, though nobody need have any doubt that the story existed in some form or the other long before it as mentioned in *Āśvalāyana Gṛhyasūtra* (III, 3, 1) which mentions Bhārata.