A History of Indian Literature v1.c9.s2.8

v1.c9.s2.8

However, it is very much more than this. We know that the literary activity of ancient India was for the most part in the hands of the priests, the Brahmans; and we have seen how they brahmanised the old popular magic songs of the Atharvaveda, and how they intermingled with their priestly wisdom, the philosophy of the Upaniṣads which was really foreign, even antagonistic, to the priesthood.² The more the heroic songs grew in favour and the more popular they became, the greater the anxiety of the Brahmans to take possession of this epic poetry also; and they had the art of compounding this poetry which was essentially and purely *secular* in origin, with their own *religious* poems and the whole stock-in-trade of their theological and priestly knowledge. Thus it happens that legends of gods, *mythological narratives of brahmanical origin*, and to a great extent even *didactic sections referring to brahmanical philosophy and ethics and brahmanical law*, were received into the Mahābhārata. This priestly caste welcomed the popular epic as the very medium for the propagation of their own doctrines, and thereby for the strengthening and consolidation of their influence. It was they who inserted into the epic all the numerous myths and legends (Itihāsas)¹ in which wonderful feats are related of the famous seers of ancient times, the Ṛṣis, the ancestors of the Brahmans, how by dint of sacrifices and asceticism, they obtain tremendous power not only over men, but even over the gods, and how, when they are offended, their curse causes the fall of princes and great men, and even of the kings of the gods.