The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s2.5

c2.s2.5

From outside sources we know only that the poem is mentioned in the Sūtra of Ācvalāyana, and seems to be intended in a description of a Hindu epic given by Dio Chrysostomos, in a fragment that may have come from Megasthenes. In the event of the description being original with the first, 100 A. D. may be set as the date of this information; with the second, 400 B. C.* What other accounts we have are not less doubtful in date. Thus, the poem is known to the Mahābhāṣya; but the earliest date of this work is 140 B. C.,† while Pāṇini's evidence is negative, mentioning characters but not the poem by name. Of the war, only the Epic gives an account, and the date of the conflict is matter of inference. Thus, Schroeder reckons that it antedates the Yajur-Veda, because the Kuru-Panchāla alliance therein recorded must have been the result of the war; but this is absolutely uncertain. Analysis led Lassen to suppose that the original poem was an account of a war between Kurus and Panchālas, not between Kurus and Pāndus. There is no very weighty reason for the view thus expressed. The poem itself asserts that its theme is the Kuru-Pāndu war. Objections offered to believing this are based on the fact that the Kurus are an old family, known in more ancient literature, while the Pāndus are not. The working-over of the poem is also thought to be attested by the fact that its introductory part states it to have had different beginnings and different lengths—8800 couplets, 24,000, and 100,000; but as, aside from other proofs of recent time, it is evident that the last length could not have been noted till the work had been completed, this whole