Studies in the Epics and Puranas c7.9

c7.9

The theory, however, was opposed by Max Müller and Lévi, who maintained that these hymns might be a kind of drama, and by Hertel and von Schröder who worked out a theory that the saṃvāda hymns were but the speeches belonging to some dramatic performance connected with the religious cult.⁴ Winternitz has found a via media in that he calls them "ancient ballads" and holds them to be the source both of the epic and the drama—the epic having developed from the narrative and the drama from the dramatic elements of the "ancient ballad."⁵