PART II.

The five Pán

wife Draupadi assume the

garb of devotees.

HISTORY OF perfect amity with each other. Yudhishthira then took off INDIA. his earrings and necklace, and all the jewels from his fingers and arms, and all his royal raiment; and he and his davas and their brethren, and their wife Draupadí, clothed themselves after the manner of devotees, in vestments made of the bark of trees. And the five brethren threw the fire of their domestic sacrifices and cookery into the Ganges, and went forth from the city following each other. First walked Yudhishthira, then Bhíma, then Arjuna, then Nakula, then Sahadeva, then Draupadí, and then a dog. And they went through the country of Banga towards the rising of the sun; and after passing through many lands they reached the Himálaya mountain, and there they died one after the other, and were transported to the heaven of Indra.

Die on the Himalaya mountains.

Review of the

The foregoing narrative of the closing scenes in tive of the close the history of the Pándavas is overlaid in the Mahá

foregoing narra

of the history.

Mythical details.

Conclusion of the Mahá Bhárata.

Bhárata with many puerile details of a Brahmanical character from which nothing of value can be inferred. They involve some exaggerated moral precepts and a fanciful description of a hell; and as these can only serve to illustrate the later religious conceptions of the Hindús they may be reserved for future discussion.

Here, then, ends the great national poem of the Mahá Bhárata, the treasury of Hindú history and fable, invested by modern interpreters with a deep religious meaning, and converted, as it were, into a testament for enforcing the worship of Krishna as the incarnation of Vishnu. But the light in which this matchless Epic is regarded by the modern Hindús may perhaps be best illustrated by the following paragraph which concludes the poem; and which, however absurd it may be to the European, is unquestionably the living faith of the millions

who dwell in the Indian peninsula under British HISTORY OF rule :

INDIA. PART II.

belief in the

virtues of the

Mahá Bhárata.

The reading of this Mahá Bhárata destroys all sin, and Modern Hindú produces virtue; so much so, that the pronunciation of a single sloka is sufficient to wipe away all guilt. This Mahá Bhárata contains the history of the gods of the Rishis in heaven and those on earth, of the Gandharvas and the Rákshasas. It also contains the life and actions of the one God holy, immutable, and true, who is Krishna; who is the creator and the ruler of this universe; who is seeking the welfare of his creation by means of his incomparable and indestructible power; whose actions are celebrated by all the sages; who has bound human beings in a chain, of which one end is life and the other death; on whom the Rishis meditate, and a knowledge of whom imparts unalloyed happiness to their hearts; and for whose gratification and favour all the daily devotions are performed by all worshippers. If a man reads the Mahá Bhárata, and has faith in its doctrines, he becomes free from all sin, and ascends to heaven after his death. If a man reads even the summary in the opening chapter of the Mahá Bhárata every morning and evening, he is absolved from all the sins that he commits during the day. As butter is to all other food; as Bráhmans are to all other men; as the Arunika chapter, which points out the way of salvation, is to all the four Vedas; as amrita is to all other medicines; as the ocean is to a pool of water; and as the cow is to all other quadrupeds;-so is the Mahá Bhárata to all other histories. He who on days of festival merely reads a small portion of the Mahá Bhárata, obtains the same advantages as is derived from reading the whole. He who attentively listens to the slokas of the Mahá Bhárata, and has faith in them, enjoys a long life and solid reputation in this world, and an eternal abode in the heavens in the next.

being called the

It is called Mahá Bhárata, because once upon a time the Reason for its gods placed the Mahá Bhárata on one scale, and the Vedas Maha Bhárata. on the other; and because the Mahá Bhárata weighed

HISTORY OF heavier, it was called by that name, which signifies the

4 This mythical estimate of the comparative value of the Mahá Bhárata and the Vedas is of some importance; inasmuch as it indicates an attempt to exhibit the Brahmanical doctrines involved in the Mahá Bhárata as overriding the earlier religious belief which appears in the Vedas.

END OF THE MAHÁ BHÁRATA.

PART III.

EPISODES IN THE MAHÁ BHÁRATA.

CHAPTER I.

LEGENDS OF KRISHNA.

INDIA.

ter of the

episodes in the

Mahá Bhárata.

THE episodes in the Mahá Bhárata are very HISTORY OF numerous, and, indeed, form the bulk of the poem, PART III. but very few appear to possess any real historical General characvalue. They chiefly consist of mythical fables intended to exalt the pretensions of the Bráhmans, or to enforce the rules of Bráhmanism, or caste. Accordingly they generally refer to miracles performed by certain Brahmanical sages; to the rigour of their austerities; to their occasional adventures with celestial nymphs or other women, which led to the birth of heroes or heroines who were famous in tradition; to the mastery of the passions, which enabled certain ascetics to resist the most powerful female allurements; or, at the best, they are extravagant stories of the devotion of a wife or the obedience of a son or a pupil. Accordingly, by far the greater por

INDIA.

Absence of

historical value.

the legends

referring to Krishna

HISTORY OF tion are utterly devoid of historical significance, and PART III. may be passed over as unmeaning myths, belonging to an age long posterior to the Vedic period, and tacked on to the main tradition of the Mahá Bhárata for the purpose of imbuing the masses with Importance of Brahmanical ideas. There is, however, one group of legends, namely, those which refer to the life of Krishna, which cannot be passed over in silence. Many, as will already have been seen, are interwoven with the story of the great war; but in addition to those already indicated, there are a series relating to the birth and adventures of Krishna before his pretended connection with the Pándavas, which are of twofold significance; first, as authentic traditions of the tribe of cowherds, known as Yádavas, who succeeded in establishing a Raj in the peninsula of Guzerat; and, secondly, as religious myths intended to represent Krishna, the hero of the Yádavas, as an incarnation of the Supreme Being known as Vishnu. In addition to these legends beside Krishna legends there are three stories which are valuable both on account of their intrinsic merits, and as belonging to three different epochs in Hindú history. The latter, however, will be treated hereafter. For the present the attention may be confined to the life of Krishna.

Their significance, historical and religious.

Three other important

connected with Krishna.

Historical character of Krishna as a

hero.

The historical character of Krishna as a hero may be briefly indicated. He appears to have belonged to a tribe well known in Hindú history as The Yadavas. that of the Yádavas, or descendants of Yadu. These Yádavas were a nomade race, who grazed cattle and made butter, and occasionally migrated to different places accompanied by their cows and waggons. The time and circumstances under which