RECENSION OF THE MAIIABHARATA 193
societies. And I would suggest — in accordance with a method already widespread in Biblical criticism—that students' editions of the texts might be printed, in which the ground of pages and paragraphs should be of various colours, according to their supposed periods. The paper of indeterminate passages might be white, for instance, the ancient yellow, the Saivite green or pink, and the additions of the Gupta period blue in tint. Or students might carry out this somewhat elaborate undertaking for themselves by means of washes of colour. In any case, such a device would prove a valuable mode of presenting to the eyes at a single glance the results of considerable time and labour.
Some points in the relative chronology are easy enough to determine. The story of Nala and Damaj'anti, for instance, by the exquisite prayer of Nala—"Thou blessed one, may the Adityas, and the Vasus, and the twin Ashwins, together with the Marutas, protect thee, thine own honour being thy best safeguard!"—betrays the fact of its origin in the Vedic or Upanishadic pre-Puranic period. The story of Nala and Damayanti is one of the oldest of Aryan memories, and the mention of the man's name first may be a token of this. The atmosphere of the story is that of the India in which Buddhism arose. The king cooks meat, and his wife eats it. The gods who accompany Nala to the Swayamvara are Vedic gods. There is no allusion throughout the story to Mahadeva
