The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s2.26

c2.s2.26

We may even go farther, and admit a general threefold evolution (not inversion), judging by the appearance of the poem as it stands to-day. For, examining the work, we find that upon the original story, the Bhārata, have been grafted many ‘secondary tales’ (*upākhyāna*); and upon these, and apart from these, have been inserted whole poems of romantic, ethical, and theological character, having nothing to do with the course of the Epic itself. We must, however, remember that our Epic has been enlarged in two ways: first, by a natural expansion of matter already extant; secondly, by unnatural addition of new material. The twelfth book may serve as a type of the latter; the eighth, of the former. These dynamically added parts (the twelfth book etc.) bear about the same relation to the original that cars do to a locomotive. We may say, if we will, that the original has ‘grown,’ but in reality it only drags a load.†