The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s6.147.3

c2.s6.147.3

In the second list of the Epic we find too that the election is used in a very free way, rather applicable to the man than to the woman: thus, *svayaṃ kanyā varayāmāsa* is used by the suitor.‡ It is well-nigh impossible to suppose that the knightly election common in the Epic could have been a usual ceremony in earlier times, or we should see traces of it in the earlier literature; but here we find only that the girl chooses a husband; nothing of the great state and show of the Epic ceremony. It seems to me, therefore, that the identification of the Epic election as a later magnificent form of that method known to the law as one with a ceremony, and seemingly synonymous with it in our two earliest Epic lists, is well-nigh certain. Again, as the Epic election is common in the latest period, if assumed for a very early one it must have existed at the time when the Greek observers described India, and been continuously before the people. The Greeks know nothing of it, however; or are we to suppose that even historical sketches of the late kings (such as of Vikramāditya) would have described as historical elaborate election-scenes entirely unknown to that age?