ach corresponds to this
distinction.[5]

Ths Bh[=a]rata, like other Hindu works, is of uncertain date, but it
was completed as a 'Great Bh[=a]rata' by the end of the sixth century
A.D., and the characters of the story are mentioned, as well known, by
P[=a]nini, whose work probably belongs to the fourth century B.C.
Furthermore, Dio Chrysostomos, probably citing from Megasthenes,
refers to it; and the latter authority describes the worship of the
chief gods of the epic; while the work is named in one of the domestic
S[=u]tras, and a verse is cited from it in the legal Sutra of
B[=a]udh[=a]yana.[6] On the other hand, in its latest growth it is on
a par with the earlier Pur[=a]nas, but it is not quite so advanced in
sectarianism as even the oldest of these writings. It may, then, be
reckoned as tolerably certain that the beginnings of the epic date
from the fourth or fifth century before the Christian era, and that it
was quite a respectable work by the time that era began; after which
it continued to grow for five centuries more.[7] Its religious
importance can scarcely be overestimated. In 600 A.D., far away from
its native home, in Cambodia, it was encircled with a temple, and an
endowment was made by the king providing for the daily recitation of
the poem. Its legal verses are authoritative; its religion is to-day
that of India as a whole. The latest large additions to it were, as we
think, the Book of Laws, the Book of Peace, and the genealogy of
Vishnu, which together form a sort of pseudo-epic. But portions of
other books, notably the first, fourth, and seventh, are probably
almost as recent as are the more palpable interpolations.

The Bh[=a]rata (or the epic [Greek: _kat exochen_] gives us our first
view of Hinduism in its sectarian developments. But no less does it
show us a changing Brahmanism. The most typical change in the
Brahmanism of this period, which covers all that time called by Mueller
the era of the Renaissance, and ends with the pedantically piquant
literature of the drama,[8] is the abnormal growth of the ascetic
religious exercise. Older Brahmanism, like the sects, admitted Yogis
and ascetics of various kinds, but their aim was to attain oneness
with God; and 'union' (with God) is the _yoga_ (Latin _jugum_ has the
same origin) which they sought. But it was not long before the starved
ascetic, with his wild appearance and great reputation for sanctity,
inspired an awe which, in the unscrupulous, w