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Amid differences of wars and diplomacy with rivalries and jealousies, a common sacred language, literature and religion with similar social and religious institutions, united the various nations together. In this time the old Vedas were compiled into bodies or collections, and the Brahmanas and the Upanishads, besides the great epic poems, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were composed.
Possibly human victims were immolated in his honour, as they were in Kâlî's until recently, for in the Mahabharata it is related how Kṛishṇa expostulated with Jarâsandha who proposed to offer to Śiva a sacrifice of captive kings. In the Vishṇu-Purâṇa, Kṛishṇa fights with Śiva and burns Benares. But by the time that the Mahabharata was put together these quarrels were not in an acute stage.
No self-respecting nineteenth century infant would have credited the account of his travels which he gave us on his return. But we were different, and had had no opportunity of learning to determine the line between the possible and the impossible. Our Mahabharata and Ramayana gave us no clue to it. Nor had we then any children's illustrated books to guide us in the way a child should go.
One further obligation springs from their new position. We have seen how in the epic, the Mahabharata, Krishna stands in a special relation to the Pandavas, the faction which emerges victorious from the great feud. The mother of the Pandavas is called Kunti and it is Kunti who is the sister of Krishna's father, Vasudeva.
I desire to hear duly. That history hath been born of the ocean-like mind of the great Rishi of soul purified by yoga. Thou foremost of good men, recite it unto me, for, O son of a Suta, my thirst hath not been appeased by all thou hast said. "Sauti said, 'I shall recite to thee from the beginning of that great and excellent history called the Mahabharata composed by Vyasa.
In several passages the Mahâbhârata speaks of the Atharva as the highest Veda and represents the Pâṇḍavas as practising polyandry, a custom which still prevails among many Himalayan tribes. The Rig Veda depicts a life not far advanced in material arts but, considering the date, humane and civilized.
He that causeth even a single foot of this poem to be heard by Brahmanas during the performance of a Sraddha, maketh that Sraddha inexhaustible, the Pitris becoming ever gratified with the articles once presented to them. The sins that are committed daily by our senses or the mind, those that are committed knowingly or unknowingly by any man, are all destroyed by hearing the Mahabharata.
"It is to the later times of Egyptian history, perhaps to the five centuries immediately before the Christian era, that the religious opinions contained in the funeral papyri chiefly belong. The Hindus taught that happiness or misery hereafter depended upon the life here. The "Mahabharata" was written, or rather collected, in the second century before Christ.
Whatever sins a Brahmana may commit at night in the midst of women are all washed off before dawn by reciting a portion of the Mahabharata. "The high race of the Bharatas is its topic. Hence it is called Bharata. And because of its grave import, as also of the Bharatas being its topic, it is called Mahabharata.
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