Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

A History of Indian Literature v1.c9.s4: Ancient Heroic Poetry in the Mahābhārata

A History of Indian Literature v1.c9.s4

Language
English

Ancient Heroic Poetry in the Mahābhārata

v1.c9.s4.1

Among the tasks of the ancient Indian bards was also that of tracing the genealogical trees of the kings, or, if necessary, of inventing them. Genealogical verses (anuvamśa-śloka) therefore, form an essential part of the old heroic poetry. And the first book of the Mahābhārata contains a whole section, entitled Sambhavaparvan or "section of the origins," in which the genealogy of the heroes is traced back to their first ancestors who were descended from the gods, and many interesting legends about these old kings of ancient times are related. Of course, among these ancestors of the Kauravas and Pāṇḍavas belonging to the Bhārata race, that *Bharata* is not missing, from whom the Mahābhārata itself has derived its name. Bharata is the son of King *Duṣyanta* and of *Śakuntalā*, so famous from the drama of Kālidāsa, and whose story is also told in the Sambhavaparvan.

v1.c9.s4.2

Unfortunately, however, this very *Śakuntalā episode* of the Mahābhārata¹ has been handed down to us in a much deteriorated and probably also mutilated, form which seems to have retained only a few features of the old heroic poem and could hardly have formed the prototype of Kālidāsa's poem. The descriptions of the forest, the chase and the hermitages, are spun out not to "epic" but to pedantic length partly after the pattern of the later ornate poetry. The story itself is unattractive and has no artistic basis. The fact that Śakuntalā is not acknowledged by the king is not accounted for, as in Kālidāsa's play, by a curse and the story of the lost ring, but by the king's desire to remove every doubt, on the part of his courtiers, as to the genuineness of the royal birth of his son. Therefore he provokes as it were, a divine judgment. He pretends not to know Śakuntalā, and refuses to acknowledge his son, until a heavenly voice announces, before the whole court, that Śakuntalā has spoken the truth and that her child is really the son of King Duṣyanta. Here we meet the two verses which we know for certain belong to the oldest part of the Śakuntalā poem and are taken from the old bard poetry.¹

v1.c9.s4.3

¹ I, 68-75. An English translation of the Śakuntalā episode by *Charles Wilkins* appeared as early as 1794 in A. Dalrymple's Oriental Repertory and separately, (London, 1795); a French translation by *A. Chézy* as an appendix to his edition of Kālidāsa's Śakuntalā drama (Paris, 1830); German translations by *B. Hirzel* (1833), *A. F. Graf von Schack* (1877, Stimmen vom Ganges, pp. 32 ff.), J. J. Meyer, Das Weib im altindischen Epos, pp. 68 ff., and W. Porzig (Indische Erzähler, Vol. 12, Leipzig 1923, pp. 50 ff.). The Kumbhakonam edition has enlarged and spoiled the traditional text still more, S. M. Winternitz, Ind. Ant. 1898, p. 136; J. J. Meyer, l.c., p. 76 note, and *Porzig*, l.c., pp. 128 ff.

v1.c9.s4.4

¹ This is proved by their repeated occurrence, for we find the same verses (I, 74,109 f.) quoted again as “genealogical verses” (anuvamśaślokau) in the Mahābhārata (I, 95, 29 f ), and they recur in the Harivamśa (32, 10 ff.), Viṣṇu-Purāṇa (IV, 19), Vāyu-Purāṇa (99, 135 f. AnSS ed.), Matsya-Purāṇa (49, 12 f. ĀnSS ed.) and Bhāgavata-Purāṇa (IX, 20, 21 f.).

v1.c9.s4.5

“The mother is but the leathern bag (for the preservation of the seed), it is to the father that the child belongs; the son, whom he has begotten, is himself.² Cherish³, thy son, Duṣyanta, do not scorn, Śakuntalā!
A son, O King, who begets offspring again, leads (the fathers) up (to heaven) out of Yama’s abode. And thou art the creator of this seed, Śakuntalā has spoken the truth.”

v1.c9.s4.6

² *Cf.* the verses translated above, on pp. 211 f.

v1.c9.s4.7

³ Because of this word “cherish” (*bhara*), the boy received the name *Bharata*.

v1.c9.s4.8

There are very probably also many old and genuine verses preserved in the dialogue between Śakuntalā, who stands up for her rights and those of her son, and the king who does not wish to acknowledge her. In any case a dialogue of this kind must have formed one of the principal parts of the old narrative, and moralising maxims, like the following beautiful verse, may have occurred in Śakuntalā’s speech:

v1.c9.s4.9

“None sees me”: so when bent on sin,
The fool imagines, madly bold;
For gods his evil deeds behold;
The soul, too, sees the man within.”⁴

v1.c9.s4.10

⁴ I, 74, 17. Translated by J. Muir, Metrical Translations from Sanskrit Writers, p. 8.

v1.c9.s4.11

Śakuntalā also probably spoke of the happiness and blessing which a son brings to his father, as in the verses:

v1.c9.s4.12

“He himself has begotten himself again as a son,⁵ thus say the wise ones. Therefore shall a man look upon his wife, the mother of his sons, as upon his own mother.”

v1.c9.s4.13

⁵ Similarly Aitareya-Brāhmaṇa VII, 13; *cf.* above, pp. 211 f.

v1.c9.s4.14

“Is there any higher blessedness than to see the little son return from play, covered with dust, and run to embrace his father's knees?”
“He has sprung from thy loins, from one soul another soul has sprung forth. Behold thy son, like a second self in a lake clear as a mirror!”¹

v1.c9.s4.15

¹ I, 74, 47; 52; 64.

v1.c9.s4.16

Yet it is not probable that *all* the beautiful sayings which are placed in the mouth of Śakuntalā really belonged to the old heroic poem, sayings which deal with the happiness of marriage, and the duties of husband and wife, with paternal duties, and with truthfulness. Some of the verses, which refer to matrimonial laws and right of succession and which have been taken directly from the legal literature, rather indicate that Brahmanical *scholars* utilised the speeches of Śakuntalā for the purpose of bringing in as many sentences as possible on morality and law. This does not prevent our finding in these very speeches some of the most magnificent examples of Indian gnomic poetry, like the following:

v1.c9.s4.17

“A wife is half the man, transcends
In value far all other friends.
She every earthly blessing brings,
And even redemption from her springs.”

“In lonely hours, companions bright,
These charming women give delight;
Like fathers wise, in duty tried,
To virtuous acts they prompt and guide.
Whene'er we suffer pain and grief,
Like mothers kind they bring relief.”

“The weary man whom toils oppress,
When travelling through life's wilderness,
Finds in his spouse a place of rest,
And there abides, refreshed and blest.”²

v1.c9.s4.18

² I, 74, 40, 42; 49 translated by J. Muir, l. c., pp. 134 f.

v1.c9.s4.19

Among the ancestors of the heroes of the Mahābhārata a king *Yayāti* is mentioned, whose history is also related in the "Sambhavaparvan," the section of the genealogical bard-poetry.¹ But just as the old Śakuntalā poem was utilised for the purpose of pointing Brahmanical teachings on law and morality, so also the old Yayāti legend, which seems originally to have been a kind of Titan legend, was transformed into a moral narrative, whereby it became a popular subject for ascetic poetry. However, the traces of the old heroic poetry are by no means entirely effaced; they are discernible particularly in a certain racy humour, with which the story of the two wives of the king is related. Out of the contents of the Yayāti episode only the following extract can be given:

v1.c9.s4.20

¹ The story is first told briefly in I, 75, then repeated with many details in I, 76-93. The last part of the legend, with a few additions, is then told once again in V, 120-123. The episode has been translated into German by A. *Holtzmann* (Indische Sagen), J. J. *Meyer* (Das Weib im altindischen Epos, pp. 8 ff.) and W. *Porzig* (Indische Erzähler, Vol. 12, pp. 12 ff.). On the different versions of the story in Sanskrit literature, s. Porzig, l.c., pp. 105 ff. On a mythological interpretation of the legend s. A. *Ludwig* in Sitzungsberichte der K. böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Prague 1898.

v1.c9.s4.21

Devayānī, daughter of the Asura priest Śukra, has been insulted by Śarmiṣṭhā, daughter of the Asura king. For this reason the priest wishes to leave the king. Now the latter, in order to appease the priest, gives his daughter to Devayānī as her handmaiden. Soon afterwards Devayānī becomes the wife of King Yayāti, who has to promise to have no intercourse with her "servant," Princess Śarmiṣṭhā. But the king breaks his promise, marries Śarmiṣṭhā secretly, and begets three sons with her. Jealous Devayānī finds it out, and complains to her father Śukra. The latter pronounces a curse upon Yayāti that he shall immediately lose his youth and become old and decrepit; however, at the request of Yayāti, he tones the curse down in as much as Yayāti may transfer his old age to someone else.

v1.c9.s4.22

Now Yayāti, after having become suddenly old and wrinkled and grey, asks his sons, one after the other, to relieve him of his old age and to give him their youth, as he has not yet enjoyed life sufficiently. None of the elder sons will agree to this exchange, whereupon they are cursed by their father. Only the youngest, Pūru, declares his willingness. He relieves his father of the burden of old age and gives him his own youth in exchange. Then Yayāti rejoiced in another thousand years of the most blooming youth, and enjoyed the pleasures of life to the very full. Not only did he take delight in his two wives, but also in a heavenly nymph, the beautiful Apsaras Viśvācī ("gracious to all"). But however much he enjoyed, he was never fully satisfied. And when the thousand years had elapsed, he came to the conclusion as expressed in the following verses:

v1.c9.s4.23

"Truly, desire is not satisfied by the gratification of desires;
Nay, it grows and waxes stronger, as the fire fed by
sacrificial ghee.
The earth filled with treasures, gold, cattle and women too,
Is not enough for one man:—think on this, and seek thy
soul's contentment.
Only he who has never wrought evil to any creature,
In thought, word or deed, only he may dwell with the
Brahman.
He who is unafraid, and who is feared by no creature,
Who has no desires and knows no hate, only he may
dwell with the Brahman." [^1) ]

v1.c9.s4.24

Then he returned his son Pūru his youth, took up the burden of his own old age, and after having instated Pūru on the throne, repaired to the forest, where he lived as a hermit, practising the severest austerities for a thousand years. On the strength of this he attained to heaven, where he lived for a long time, honoured by all the gods and saints. One day, however, he boasted during a conversation with Indra, and was cast out from heaven for this offence. Later on, however, he returns to heaven with his four pious grandchildren.

v1.c9.s4.25

[^1) ]: I, 75, 49-52. Only the first verse recurs literally in all the other places where the Yayāti legend is related. (It also occurs in Manu II, 94.) The remaining verses are found again with variations in I, 85, 12-16, Harivaṁśa 30, 1639-1645, Viṣṇu-Purāṇa IV, 10, Bhāgavata-Purāṇa IX, 19, 13-15. But only in I, 75, 51-52 and Harivaṁśa 30, 1642 is there any talk of union with the Brahman in the sense of the Vedānta philosophy. In all other places the corresponding verses only talk of the curbing of desires as the worthy aim of the morality of asceticism, and this morality is the same for Buddhists and Jainas as for the Brahmanical and Viṣṇuite ascetics. Hence we find quite similar sayings amongst all Indian sects which practise asceticism.

v1.c9.s4.26

The legend of Nahuṣa, the father of Yayāti, which is related in the Mahābhārata several times,¹ is also a kind of Titan legend, which ends with a fall from heaven:

v1.c9.s4.27

¹ First in I, 75 as an introduction to the Yayāti episode, then in greater detail in V, 11-17; in a short extract also XII, 342 and XIII, 100. A free poetical adaptation by *Ad. Holtzmann*, Indische Sagen I, pp. 9-30.

v1.c9.s4.28

*Nahuṣa*, a grandson of the Purūravas of Vedic fame,² was a mighty king, who annihilated the robber bands (dasyusaṃghātān). But he levied taxes on the ṛṣis, too, and commanded them to carry him on their backs, like beasts of burden. He even overpowered the gods, and ruled the heavens for a long time in Indra’s stead. He desired Indra’s wife Śacī as his wife, and grew so overbearing that he yoked the divine ṛṣis to his chariot, treading on Agastya’s head. Now this was a bit too much for this great saint, and he cursed Nahuṣa, with the consequence that he fell out of heaven and was obliged to live on the earth as a snake for ten thousand years.³

v1.c9.s4.29

² Purūravas too (*cf.* above, pp. 103 f., 209 f.) was like Nahuṣa, according to the Mahābhārata (I, 75, 20 ff.) an enemy of the priests, oppressing the ṛṣis and being annihilated by their curse.

v1.c9.s4.30

³ He was then redeemed by Yudhiṣṭhira (III, 179 f.), see above, p. 349.

v1.c9.s4.31

Some of the poems which have found admission into the Mahābhārata are of such proportions, and form a complete whole to such an extent, that we can speak of them as epics within the epic. Of this kind is above all the rightly famous poem of Nala and Damayantī.⁴ While the Pāṇḍavas are in banishment in the forest they receive a visit from the Ṛṣi Bṛhadaśva. Yudhiṣṭhira complains to him of his own misfortune and that of his people, and asks him the question whether there has ever been a more unfortunate king than himself. Thereupon Bṛhadaśva relates the story of the unfortunate king Nala, who loses all his possessions and his kingdom in a game of dice with his brother Puṣkara, and then goes forth into the forest as an exile with his beautiful and faithful wife Damayantī; pursued and blinded still further by the wicked demon of gambling, he deserts his faithful wife in the midst of the forest, while she lies deep in slumber, fatigued from her wanderings. The adventures of King Nala, and of Damayantī, deserted by her husband, how they wander about in the forest separated from each other, how Damayantī, after much sorrow and hardship, obtains a friendly reception from the queen-mother of Cedi, how Nala, after the snake-king Karkoṭaka has made him irrecognisable, serves King Ṛtuparṇa as charioteer and cook, until finally the husband and wife, after a long and painful separation, are reunited in love, all this is related in the touchingly simple, 'genuinely popular, tone of the fairy tale, which also is not lacking in humour.

v1.c9.s4.32

⁴ III, 52-79: Nalopākhyāna.

v1.c9.s4.33

Since the year 1819 when Franz Bopp first published this poem of King Nala, together with a Latin translation, it is recognised as one of the gems of Indian literature, nay more, as one of the gems of universal literature. Bopp's edition and translation of the poem was welcomed by A. W. v. Schlegel¹ with the words: "I will only say that, in my estimation, this poem can hardly be surpassed in pathos and ethos, in the enthralling force and tenderness of the sentiments. It is made expressly to attract old and young, the high-born and the lowly, the connoisseurs and those who are merely guided by instinct. Also, the fairy-tale is tremendously popular in India,......there the courageous constancy and devotion of Damayantī is equally famous as that of Penelope amongst us; and in Europe, the gathering-place of the productions of all continents and all ages, it deserves to become equally so." And indeed it has become so. The German poet Friedrich Rückert, that past master in the art of translation, rendered the poem into German verse in the year 1828² with his incomparable talent, making it as popular in Germany as it has become famous in England by means of Dean H. H. Milman’s version.¹

v1.c9.s4.34

¹ Indische Bibliothek, 1, 98 f.

v1.c9.s4.35

² New 'editions appeared in 1838, 1845, 1862 and 1873. A very free poetical rendering was given by Ad. Holtzmann in his "Indische Sagen."

v1.c9.s4.36

¹ *Nala and Damayantī and other Poems translated from the Sanskrit into English verse*, Oxford, 1835.

v1.c9.s4.37

Nala Naiṣadha, the hero of the narrative, is surely no other than the Naḍa Naiṣidha, mentioned in the Satapatha-Brāhmaṇa, of whom it is there said, that “day after day he bears Yama (the god of death) to the South.” He must therefore have lived at that time, and undertaken warlike expeditions towards the South. The name of the hero thus indicates high antiquity. The poem itself probably belongs among the old parts of the Mahābhārata, though not among the oldest. In any case it is free from all purāṇa-like accessories, and only the old Vedic gods, like Varuṇa and Indra, are mentioned, but not Viṣṇu or Śiva. The state of civilisation, too, described in the poem is, on the whole, quite simple and has the appearance of antiquity. On the other hand we find hardly anywhere in the oldest poetry such delicacy and so much romance in the representation of courtship and of love itself, as especially in the first cantos of the Nala poem. Only the very ancient poem of the love of Purūravas and Urvaśī allows us to suspect that love-romance was no stranger to India even in the most ancient times. But how very congenial romance is to the Indian mind in general, is proved by the enormous popularity of this poem, which has again and again been imitated by later poets, in Sanskrit as well as in modern Indian languages and dialects.² Few Indian poems also suit European taste so extremely well as the Nala poem. It has been translated into practically all the languages of Europe,³ and a dramatic adaptation by A. de Gubernatis was even produced on the stage in Florence in 1869. And since a long time it has been the custom, at almost all Western universities, to begin the study of Sanskrit with the reading of this poem, for which purpose it is excellently adapted in language as well as contents.')

v1.c9.s4.38

² *Cf.* the enumeration in A. *Holtzmann*, Das Mahabharata, II, 69 ff.

v1.c9.s4.39

³ A. *Holtzmann*, loc. cit., II, 73 ff. mentions translations into German, English, French, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Polish, Russian, Modern Greek and Hungarian. I will only mention the translations into English by Monier *Williams* (1860), Charles *Bruce* (1864), Edwin *Arnold* (Indian Idylls, 1883, Poetical Works, 1885); into German by E. Lobedanz (1863), H. C. *Kellner* (in Reclams Universalbibliothek), L. *Fritze* (1914); into French by S. *Lévi* (Paris, 1920 in "Les classiques de l'orient," Paris 1920).

v1.c9.s4.40

') The text of the Nala story has often been published, with glossary and notes, for beginners in Sanskrit, *e g.*, by G. *Bühler* (Third Book of Sanskrit, Bombay, 2nd Ed. 1877), *Monier Williams* (London, 1879), J. *Eggeling* (London, 1913), H. C. *Kellner* (Leipzig 1885), W. *Caland* (Utrecht, 1917).

v1.c9.s4.41

The Rāma2) episode, too, is a kind of epic within an epic. But while the Nala poem (in spite of some disfiguring additions and insertions, from which indeed *no* part of the Mahābhārata is quite free) is a work of art and a valuable survival of the ancient bard-poetry, the narrative of Rāma has only a purely literary significance for the history of the second great epic of the Indians, the Rāmāyaṇa. For the Rāma episode can scarcely be regarded as anything but a rather inartistically abridged rendering of either the Rāmāyaṇa itself,3) or of those heroic songs from which Vālmīki composed his great poem. In no case is it these oldest heroic songs of Rāma themselves, which we find in the Mahābhārata. The Rāma episode is related by the ṛṣi Mārkaṇḍeya to console Yudhiṣṭhira, who is much depressed on account of the rape of Draupadī4); for Rāma's wife, too, Sītā, was abducted, and was held in captivity for a long time by the demon Rāvaṇa. References to the Rāma legend are not rare in other parts of the Mahābhārata either. I point out only the meeting of Bhīma with the monkey Hanumat.¹

v1.c9.s4.42

2) III, 273-290: Rāmopākhyāna.

v1.c9.s4.43

3) H. *Jacobi* (Das Rāmāyaṇa, (Bonn, 1893), pp. 71 ff.) has given such good reasons for this assumption that it seems to me the most probable one, in spite of the objections of A. *Ludwig*, Über das Râmâyaṇa und die Beziehungen desselben zum Mahâbharata, pp. 30 ff., and *Hopkins*, The Great Epic of India, pp. 63 f. Cf. also A. *Weber*, Über das Rāmāyaṇa, pp. 34 ff.

v1.c9.s4.44

4) See above, pp. 350 f. Probably this story of the rape of Draupadī is itself only a clumsy imitation of the stealing of Sītā in the Rāmāyaṇa.

v1.c9.s4.45

¹ Above, p. 348.

v1.c9.s4.46

A much more valuable remnant of ancient Indian bard-poetry, unfortunately preserved only as a fragment, is found in the fifth book of the Mahābhārata. It is the episode of the *hero-mother Vidulā*.² Kuntī sends a message by Kṛṣṇa to her sons, the Pāṇḍavas, telling them not to forget their duty as warriors,³ and on this occasion relates how the warrior's wife Vidulā once urged her son Sañjaya on to fight. The latter was quite discouraged after a shameful defeat which he had suffered at the hands of the king of the Sindhus, and lived with his wife and his mother Vidulā in misery. Then, in extremely forceful language Vidulā reproaches him with his cowardice and inactivity, and with fiery words spurs him on to new deeds of heroism. In order to give an idea of the racy vigour of the language of this fragment of ancient heroic poetry, I give a few verses from this speech in literal prose translation:⁴

v1.c9.s4.47

² V, 133-136: Vidulāputrānuśāsana. *Cf.* H. Jacobi, Über ein verlorenes Helden-gedicht der Sindhu-Sauvīra (in Mélanges Kern, Leyden, 1903, pp. 53 ff.). A free poetical rendering of the poem is given by J. Muir, Metrical Translations from Sanskrit Writers, pp. 120-133. He justly refers to the women of Rājputānā who “maintain in more recent times the character of heroism ascribed to Vidulā in this passage of the Mahābhārata. (l.c., p. 132).

v1.c9.s4.48

³ See above, p. 357.

v1.c9.s4.49

⁴ The translation by *Muir*, l.c., pp. 121 f. gives no sufficient idea of the raciness of the original.

v1.c9.s4.50

“Up, coward! Lie not there so idle, when thou hast suffered defeat, to the joy of thy foes, to the sorrow of thy friends!”
“A shallow brooklet is soon filled, the fist of a mouse is easy to fill. The coward is soon satisfied, he is contented even with little.”
“Die not like a cur before thou hast at least robbed the serpent of its fangs! Be brave, though it cost thee thy life!”
“Why liest thou there like a dead man, like one who has been struck by lightning? Up, coward! Sleep not, when thou hast been defeated by the foe!”

v1.c9.s4.51

“ Flare up like a torch of tinduka wood,¹ though it be but for a moment, but smother not like a fire of chaff, just to prolong life ! ”
“ Better flare up for a moment than smother for hours ! O that a mild ass should have been born in a royal house !
“ That man whose deeds do not form the subject of tales of wonder, serves but to increase the great heap, he is neither woman nor man.” ²

v1.c9.s4.52

¹ Tinduka, the Diespyros embryopteris tree.

v1.c9.s4.53

² V, 132, 8-10, 12, 15, 22.

v1.c9.s4.54

To all the admonitions and reproaches of his mother, the son, who is sharply characterised by his short speeches, has only the reply that he lacks the means for a victorious battle, and that, in any case, his death would not benefit her:

v1.c9.s4.55

“ Thou hast a hard, an iron heart,
And play’st no loving mother’s part,—
True daughter of a warrior line ;
A fierce unbending soul is thine.
To all thy Kshatriya instincts true,
Thou dost not yield to love its due ;
Nor seek to guard me as thy one
Supreme delight, thine only son !
But spurr’st me on, devoid of ruth,—
As if I were an alien youth,—
To join again in hopeless strife,
And all in vain to peril life.
What worth would earth, its wealth, its joys,
Its power, its state, its glittering toys,—
What worth would life—possess for thee,
My mother, if thou hadst not me ? ” ³

v1.c9.s4.56

³ V, 134, 1-3. Translated by J. Muir, l.c., pp. 127 f.

v1.c9.s4.57

But his mother always answers him again with fresh exhortations, that a warrior may not know fear, and must in any case fulfil his duty as a warrior. And at last she succeeds in rousing her son, “ even though he had little intelligence.”

v1.c9.s4.58

“Like a noble steed when it is chastised, the son, goaded by the shafts of his mother’s words, did all she asked of him.” [^1) ]

v1.c9.s4.59

This torso of a heroic poem is one of the few portions of the Mahābhārata which have remained almost entirely untouched by brahmanical influence. Only too often has the old bard-poetry, which was inspired by the warrior-spirit, been quite watered down in form and contents under the influence of the Brahmin scholars. Thus we find—this is one of the many instances—an “old itihāsa” quoted in the twelfth book of the Mahābhārata, which Nārada relates to Sṛñjaya, in order to console him after the death of his son. Many kings of primitive times are named, who all had to die, though they were famous heroes. But of what do the “heroic deeds” of these kings consist? They offered countless sacrifices, and what was still more important, gave enormous presents to the priests. One king, for example, gives the priests as sacrificial gift “a thousand times a thousand” maidens adorned with gold, each of whom sits on a four-horse chariot; each chariot is accompanied by a hundred elephants garlanded with gold; behind each elephant follow a thousand horses, and behind each horse a thousand cows, behind each cow a thousand goats and sheep.[^2) ] It is often difficult to say whether they are remnants of ancient heroic poetry, spoilt through the priests’ attempts at recasting, or independent brahmanical compositions.

Linked texts (10)