ORIENTAL SERIES.

190
MA HA-BHARA TA.
a matter of conjecture and deduction. As a compiled work ii is
generally considered to be about a century later in date than the
Ramaya^a, 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 Maha-bharata is in Upper India,
while that of the Ramayaraa 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 Mahabharata
was known to Dion Chrysostoiu 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 Maha-bharata is between the two. .Professor
Williams believes that " the earliest or pre-brahmanical composi-
tion 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 Ramaya^a about the beginning of the third century
B.O., and in the case of the Maha-bharata still later." Lassen
thinks that three distinct arrangements of the Maha-bharata are
distinctly traceable. The varied contents of the Maha-bharata
and their disjointed arrangement afford some warrant for these
opinions, and although the Ramayawa 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 pre-
ceding the Christian era, and that the Ramayawa had the priority.
The complete text of the Maha-bharata 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 Maha-
bharata :
/ i, Adi-pa/rva,
'
Introductory book/ Describes the genealogy
of the two families, the birth and nurture of Dhnta-rash/ra and
Pandu, their marriages, the births of the hundred sons of the
former and the five of the latter, tae enmity and rivalry between