The History of Indian Literature c9.39

c9.39

²⁰³ With regard to the existence, so early as the time of the Mahábháshya, of a poetical version of the Mahá-Bhárata legend, see *I. St.*, xiii. 356 ff. "Still this does not in the smallest degree prove the existence of the work in a form at all resembling the shape in which we now have it; and as the final result, we do not advance materially beyond the passage in Dion Chrysostom (*I. St.*, ii. 161 ff.), relating to the 'Indian Homer.' For the statements of the Greek writer themselves evidently date from an earlier time; and although not necessarily derived, as Lassen supposes, from Megasthenes himself, yet they at any rate take us back to a period pretty nearly coincident with that of the Bháshya."