178 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY
Indian tradition through subsequent ages. It takes many lives sometimes to carry out a single great task, and we can only guess whether or not Samudra Gupta began the undertakings whose completion was to make his son illustrious.
In my own opinion, the very head and front of these must have been the final recension of the Mahabharata at some time within the famous reign, say at about the year A.D. 400. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that certain of the Puranas, notably the Vishnu and Bhagavata, were edited, exactly as the Bhagavata claims, immediately after the Mahabharata by scholars who found cause for regret in the fact that work had not given them the scope required for all the details they were eager to give regarding the life of the Lord. I do not remember even to have seen any note on the social functions of the Puranas. But the Vishnu Purana strongly suggests a state curriculum of education. In the ages before printing, literature must for the mass of people in all countries have tended to take the form of a single volume —witness the name biblos or Bible, the book—containing elements of history and geography, a certain amount of general information, some current fiction, and above all an authoritative rendering of theology and morals in combination. History of course would be reduced to little more than an indication of the origin of the reigning dynasty, or a sketch of the epoch regarded at the time of writing as "modern." Geography would consist of an
