epic of the Mahābhārata. The ground-work of this is doubtless of very early date; but it has served as a text into which materials of various character and period have been inwoven, until it has become a heterogeneous mass, a kind of cyclopedia for the warrior-caste, hard to separate into its constituent parts. The story of Nala, and the philosophical poem Bhagavad-Gītā, are two of the most noted of its episodes. The Rāmāyaṇa, the other most famous epic, is a work of another kind: though also worked over and more or less altered in its transmission to our time, it is the production, in the main, of a single author (Vālmīki); and it is generally believed to be in part allegorical, representing the introduction of Aryan culture and dominion into Southern India. By its side stand a number of minor epics, of various authorship and period, as the Raghuvaṅça (ascribed to the dramatist Kālidāsa), the Māghakāvya, the Bhaṭṭikāvya (the last, written chiefly with the grammatical intent of illustrating by use as many as possible of the numerous formations which, through taught by the grammarians, find no place in the literature).
The Purāṇas, a large class of works mostly of immense extent, are best mentioned in connection with the epics. They are pseudo-historical and prophetic in character, of modern date, and of inferior value. Real history finds no place in Sanskrit literature, nor is there any conscious historical element in any of the works composing it.
Lyric poetry is represented by many works, some of which, as the Meghadūta and Gītagovinda, are of no mean order of merit.
The drama is a still more noteworthy and important branch. The first indications of dramatical inclination and capacity on the part of the Hindus are seen in certain hymns of the Veda, where a mythological or legendary situation is conceived dramatically, and set forth in the form of a dialogue — well-known examples are the dialogue of Saramā and the Paṇis, that of Yama and his sister Yamī, that of Vasishtha and the rivers, that of Agni and the other gods — but there are no extant intermediaries between these
