Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c38.5

c38.5

³ "The cumulative evidence of the above arguments makes it difficult to avoid the conclusion that the kernel of the *Rāmāyaṇa* was composed before 500 B.C., while the more recent portions were probably not added till the second century B.C. and later." Macdonell, *Sanskrit Literature*, p. 309. The view is in agreement with Jacobi's analysis (*Das Rāmāyaṇa*).