A History of Sanskrit Literature c13.19

c13.19

These disconnected battle-songs were, we must assume, worked up by some poetic genius into a comparatively short epic, describing the tragic fate of the Kuru race, who, with justice and virtue on their side, perished through the treachery of the victorious sons of Pāṇḍu, with Kṛishṇa at their head. To the period of this original epic doubtless belong the traces the *Mahābhārata* has preserved unchanged of the heroic spirit and the customs of ancient times, so different from the later state of things which the *Mahābhārata* as a whole reflects. To this period also belongs the figure of Brahmā as the highest god. The evidence of Pāli literature shows that Brahmā already occupied that position in Buddha's time. We may, then, perhaps assume that the original form of our epic came into being about the fifth century B.C. The oldest evidence we have for the existence of the *Mahābhārata* in some shape or other is to be found in Āçvalāyana's Gṛihya Sūtra, where a *Bhārata* and *Mahābhārata* are mentioned. This would also point to about the fifth century B.C.