A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.1024

c5.1024

The date of the Mahā-bhārata is very uncertain, and is at best a matter of conjecture and deduction. As a compiled work it is generally considered to be about a century later in date than the Rāmāyaṇa, though there can be no doubt that the general thread of the story, and the incidents directly connected with it, belong to a period of time anterior to the story and scenes of that epic. The fact that the scene of the Mahā-bhārata is in Upper India, while that of the Rāmāyaṇa is in the Dakhin and Ceylon, is of itself sufficient to raise a strong presumption in favour of the superior antiquity of the former. Weber shows that the Mahā-bhārata was known to Dion Chrysostom in the second half of the first century A.D.; and as Megasthenes, who was in India about 315 B.C., says nothing about the epic, Weber’s hypothesis is that the date of the Mahā-bhārata is between the two. Professor Williams believes that “the earliest or pre-brahmanical composition of both epics took place at a period not later than the fifth century B.C.,” but that “the first orderly completion of the two poems in their Brahmanised form may have taken place in the case of the Rāmāyaṇa about the beginning of the third century B.C., and in the case of the Mahā-bhārata still later.” Lassen thinks that three distinct arrangements of the Mahā-bhārata are distinctly traceable. The varied contents of the Mahā-bhārata and their disjointed arrangement afford some warrant for these opinions, and although the Rāmāyaṇa is a compact, continuous, and complete poem, the professed work of one author, there are several recensions extant which differ considerably from each other. Taking a wide interval, but none too wide for a matter of such great uncertainty, the two poems may be considered as having assumed a complete form at some period in the six centuries preceding the Christian era, and that the Rāmāyaṇa had the priority. The complete text of the Mahā-bhārata has been twice printed in India, and a complete translation in French by Fauche has been interrupted by his death. But M. Fauche’s translations are not in much repute. This particular one, says Weber, “can only pass for a translation in a very qualified sense.” Many episodes and portions of the poem have been printed and translated. The following is a short epitome of the eighteen books of the Mahā-bhārata:—