A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.17

c19.17

With regard to the Epics, we find the statement of the Greek rhetorician Dio Chrysostomos (50–117 a.d.) that the Indians sang in their own language the poetry of Homer, the sorrows of Priam, the laments of Andromache and Hecuba, the valour of Achilles and Hector. The similarity of some of the leading characters of the *Mahābhārata*, to which the Greek writer evidently alludes, caused him to suppose that the Indian epic was a translation of the *Iliad*. There is, however, no connection of of any kind between the two poems. Nor does Professor Weber’s assumption of Greek influence on the *Rāmāyaṇa* appear to have any sufficient basis (p. 307).