[72] This statement, which is so consistent with what is known in respect to genuine historical events in India, throws a strong side-light upon the utter inability of the Indian kings from times immemorial to unite for purposes of defence, their ready acceptance of defeat, and their willing allegiance to the conqueror.
[73] The whole story, though so bewilderingly strange, is yet so characteristically Hindu in its conception and motive, that I could not exclude it even from this brief sketch. Nor could I venture to present it in words other than those of an orthodox Hindu translator.
[74] Throughout these epics, questions of right and wrong, policy and impolicy are discussed with rare acumen.
[75] A little later Arjuna, addressing Krishna, says: “O slayer of all foes, having floated on the primordial waters, thou subsequently becamest Hari, and Brahma, and Surya, and Dharma, and Dhatri, and Yama, and Anala, and Vayu, and Vaisravana, and Rudra, and Kala, and the firmament, the earth, and the ten directions! Thyself incarnate, thou art the lord of the mobile and immobile universe, the creator of all, O thou foremost of all existences.” It would appear that each deity who is invoked is credited by his adorer with being the origin and support of the entire universe, the beginning and the end of all things.
[76] In a subsequent page, however, we find the following. “Tell us now, O Brahman, what was the food of the sons of Pandu while they lived in the woods? Was it of the wilderness or was it the produce of cultivation?” Vaisampayana said “Those bulls among men collecting the produce of the wilderness, and killing the deer with pure arrows, first dedicated a portion of the food to the Brahmans and themselves ate the rest.” (Section L.)
[77] This is an interesting and noteworthy instance of idolatry attributed to one of the ancient Aryan heroes by the Brahman authors of the “Mahabharata.”
[78] “Apsaras—The Apsaras are the celebrated nymphs of Indra’s heaven.... It is said that when they came forth from the waters (at the churning of the ocean) neither the gods nor the Asuras would have them for wives, so they become common to all.... The Apsaras, then, are fairy-like beings, beautiful and voluptuous. Their amours on earth have been numerous, and they are the rewards in Indra’s paradise held out to heroes who fall in battle.”—Prof. Dawson’s “Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology,” etc.
[79] This is only a single instance of the perpetual and undying hostility between the celestials on the one hand and the demons on the other.
[80] Markandeya’s description of the dissolution and recreation of the world has undoubtedly a certain grandiose character about it, but betrays the extremely limited geographical knowledge of these omniscient sages, whose acquaintance with the earth’s surface is strictly bounded by the Himalayas and the Southern Sea.
[81] A smiling fish is, at least, an original idea. In another place we find the following in regard to a very ancient tortoise. “And as he came there we asked him, saying: 'Dost thou know this King Indra-dyumna?’ And the tortoise reflected for a moment. And his eyes filled with tears, and his heart was much moved, and he trembled all over and was nearly deprived of his senses. And he said with joined hands, 'Alas, do I not know that one?’”—Vana Parva, p. 604.—P. C. Roy.