NOTES. XI 



most intimate connection with the external and internal life of man. The 

 second epoch is very different : in it a popular mythology was formed, having 

 for its object to mould the contents of the Vedas into a shape more easily 

 comprehensible by an age already far removed in character from that which 

 had given them birth, and to interweave them with historical events to which 

 a mythical character is given. To this second epoch belong the two great 

 heroic poems, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata ; the latter had also the 

 additional object of rendering the Brahmins the most influential of the four 

 ancient Indian castes. The Ramayana is the older and more beautiful poem 

 of the two : it is more rich in natural feeling, and has kept more strictly oil 

 poetic ground, not having been constrained to take up elements alien and 

 almost hostile to poetry. In both poems, nature no longer constitutes, as in 

 the Vedas, the entire picture, but only a portion of it. There are two points 

 which essentially distinguish the conception of nature at the period of the 

 heroic poems from that which the Vedas present, independently of the wide 

 diiference between the language of adoration and that of narrative. One of 

 these points is the localising of the description. According to Wilhelm von 

 Schlegel, the first book of the Ramayana, or Balakanda, and the second book, 

 or Ayodhyakanda, are examples i see also Lassen, Ind. Alterthumskunde, 

 Bd. i. S. 482, on the differences between these two epics. Narrative, whe- 

 ther historical, legendary, or fabulous, leads to the specification of particular 

 localities, rather than to general descriptions. These early epic poets, whether 

 Valmiki, who sings the exploits of Rama, or the authors of the Mahabharata, 

 named collectively, by tradition, Vyasa, all show themselves transported, and 

 as it were overpowered, by emotions connected with external nature. Rama' 

 journey from Ayodhya to Dschanaka's capital ; his life in the forest ; his ex- 

 pedition to Lanka (Ceylon), where dwelt the savage Ravana, the robber of 

 his bride, Sita ; and the hermit life of the Panduides ; all furnish to the poet 

 the opportunity of following the bent of the Indian mind, and of blending, 

 with the relation of heroic deeds, the rich imagery of tropical nature. (Rama- 

 yana, ed. Schlegel, lib. i. cap. 26, v. 13 15 : lib. ii. cap. 56, v. 6 11 : com- 

 pare Nalus, ed. Bopp, 1832, Ges. xii. V. 110.) The other point in which 

 the second epoch differs from that of the Vedas in regard to external nature, 

 is closely connected with the first, and consists in the greater richness of ma- 

 terials employed, comprehending the whole of nature, the heavens and the 

 earth, with the world of plants and of animals in all their luxuriance and variety, 

 and viewed in their influence on the mind and feelings of men. In the third 

 epoch of poetic literature (if we except the Puranas, which have a particular 



