An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c7.s3.2

c7.s3.2

Scholars seem to be coming steadily nearer unanimity as to the three essential moments in the history of the epics. They are practically the same for both. All three stages are very fully represented in the *Mahābhārata*, but it is in the *Rāmāyaṇa* that the first and the second can be most easily studied, while the third, which is only faintly represented in it, attains enormous proportions in the *Mahābhārata*. They are as follows: