[Footnote 4: Dramatic and lyric poetry is artificial even in language.]
[Footnote 5: Schroeder, p. 453, compares the mutual relation of the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata and R[=a]m[=a]yana to that of the Nibelungenlied and the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach. Jacobi, in his 'R[=a]m[=a]yana,' has lately claimed a considerable antiquity for the foundation legends of the R[=a]m[=a]yana, but he does not disprove the late completed form.]
[Footnote 6: i. 78. 10; see Bühler's Introduction.]
[Footnote 7: Jacobi seeks to put the completed nucleus at the time of the Christian era, but it must have been quite a large nucleus in view of the allusions to it in precedent literature. Holtztmann puts the completion at about 1000 A.D.; but in 700 A.D., it was complete, and most scholars will agree with Bühler that the present Mah[=a]-Bh[=a]rata was completed by the sixth or seventh century. In 533 A.D. it contained 100,000 distichs, that is, it was about the size it is now.]
[Footnote 8: By the time the drama began the epic was become a religious storehouse, and the actual epic story represented not a fifth of the whole work, so that, with its simple language, it must have seemed, as a literary production, very wearisome to the minds that delighted in the artificial compounds and romantic episodes of the drama and lyric. But even to-day it is recited at great fêtes, and listened to with rapt attention, as the rhapsodes with more or less dramatic power recite its holy verses.]
[Footnote 9: The later law-books say expressly that women and slaves have a right to use mantra, mantr[=a]dhik[=a]ri[n.]as. But the later legal Smritis are no more than disguised sectarian Pur[=a]nas.]
[Footnote 10: Compare the visit of the old Muni on the prince in iii. 262. 8. He is paramakopana, 'extremely irritable'; calls for food only to reject it; growls at the service, etc. Everything must be done 'quickly' for him. "I am hungry, give me food, quick," is his way of speaking, etc. (12). The adjective is one applied to the All-gods, paramakrodhinas.]
[Footnote 11: Each spiritual teacher instructed high-caste boys, in classes of four or five at most. In xii. 328. 41 the four students of a priest go on a strike because the latter wants to take another pupil besides themselves and his own son.]
[Footnote 12: The saints in the sky praise the combatants (vii. 188. 41; viii. 15. 27); and the gods roar approval of prowess "with roars like a lion's" (viii. 15. 33). Indra and S[=u]rya and the Apsarasas cool off the heroes with heavenly fans (ib. 90. 18). For the last divinities, see Holtzmann's essays, ZDMG. xxxii. 290; xxxiii. 631.]
[Footnote 13: The original author of the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata is reputed to be of low caste, but the writers of the text as it is to-day were sectarian priests. It was written down, it is said, by Ganeça, 'lord of the troops' of Çiva, i. 1. 79, and some historic truth lies in the tale. The priests of Çiva were the last to retouch the poem, as we think.]