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Indian poetry, even when nominally secular, is perhaps too much under religious influence to suit our taste and the long didactic and philosophic harangues which interrupt the action of the Mahabharata seem to us inartistic, yet to those who take the pains to familiarize themselves with what at first is strange, the Mahabharata is, I think, a greater poem than the Iliad.
About the sixth century A.D. the decadence of Buddhism and the invigoration of Brahmanism were both well advanced. The Mahabharata existed as a great collection of epic and religious poetry and the older Puranas were already composed.
The Mahabharata is a great poetic narrative of a conflict between the two branches of the Bharata family the Pandavas and the Kauravas for the petty kingdom of Hastinapura, near the modern city of Delhi. The two forces are already, in counter array, eager for the fray on the battle-field of Kuruchetra.
They often utter falsehoods without any apparent reason; and even when truth would be an advantage, they will not tell it.... Yet, strange to say, some of their works and sayings represent a falsehood as almost the unpardonable sin. The Mahabharata is one of the great epics of ancient India.
The Messenger Cloud of this poet is not surpassed by any European writer of verse. The Ramayon and the Mahabharata are the two great Epic poems of India, and they exceed in conception and magnitude any of the Epic poems in the world, surpassing the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Jerusalem Delivered.
True, Ruskin saw nothing but cruelty and corruption in Indian life or art; but let us hear an Indian maxim in regard to those who, in cruel places, are ready sufferers: "There," says the Mahabharata, "where women are treated with respect, the very gods are said to be filled with joy. Women deserve to be honoured. Serve ye them. Bend your will before them.
The Epics took such hold of the popular heart that any fact, any theory, any myth that could be attached to them found ready credence. The Mahabharata especially became a general texture upon which any philosophy, or all the philosophies, might be woven at will.
In the Mahabharata there are powerful demons, and the Çivaite cult includes the worship of dread beings, but such worship only reflects the fear of the unfriendly elements of physical nature.
We cannot assign to the Mahâbhârata one date or author, and the title of Upanishad is no guarantee for the age or authenticity of the treatises that bear it.
Fear of these malignant beings sometimes prevents attempts to rescue a drowning person; such attempts are held to bring down the vengeance of the water-demon on the would-be rescuer. +312+. In the course of time true water-gods appear. In Greece every river had its deity, and in India such deities are found in the Mahabharata.
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