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384 Rajendralala Mitra — An Imperial Assemllage [No. g, 



it would be quite misleading to put it forth as a picture of that original. 

 Even if it be true, it would be like the skeleton of Hercules put forth 

 as Hercules in flesh and blood, or an uncarved stone of the Parthenon 

 put forth to represent the character of that renowned work of art. 

 Doubtless, the Pandavas were a primitive people, and twelve hundred years 

 before the Christian era, it would be unreasonable to look, among them, 

 for the refinements of the nineteenth century ; but the question before us 

 is as to what the state of civilization was which they had attained, and to 

 reject the only available evidence in the case, the Mahabharata, on the a 

 priori assumption that, inasmuch as they must have been the counterparts o£ 

 the Juangahs of our day, they could not have been so civilized as to command 

 houses and tents, or the comforts and conveniences of furniture and clothing, 

 is, to say the least, an unphilosophical mode of argument. To create one's 

 own major, in order to deduce therefrom a foregone conclusion, is not the most 

 logical method for the unravelling of the tangled maze of historical truth. 

 The question, besides, suggests itself, if the Pandavas were really naked 

 savages, what had they to do with the rite of the Rajasuya ? It is impossible 

 to conceive that their circumstances remaining as they are the Juangahs 

 or the Andamanese could think of such a politico-religious rite, and in the 

 case of persons of their condition three thousand years ago, such an idea would 

 be totally unwarrantable. We have the authority of the Aitareya Brahmana 

 of the Rig Yeda, and theSahhitas and the Brahmanas of the Black and the 

 White Yajur Vedas, whose antiquity and authenticity are unimpeached, to 

 show that the rite under notice was well known to the Aryans from a 

 very remote period of antiquity, and the description given in those works 

 of the rite and its requirements, indicates that the social and political con- 

 dition of their authors was considerably more advanced than those of men 

 who have no higher conception of a solemn religious rite than entering into 

 a drinking bout, seated on the grass under the shade of trees. The Pan- 

 davas, if such a family ever lived, must have lived either before the date of 

 the Vedas, or after it. In the former case, they could not have performed 

 the ceremony, for the ceremony had not been then designed. If the latter, 

 they must have known the Vedic ordinances, and been in a condition to 

 follow them. And in either case the theory of naked savages feasting 

 under the shade of trees to celebrate the rite in question must be given up 

 as untenable. The story of the Pandavas may, for aught we know to the 

 contrary, be all a myth, even as that of the Iliad founded, as supposed by 

 some, on an allegory of the Dawn chased by the rising sun ; but as in the 

 latter case the Iliad must be accepted as a history of the inner life of 

 men and manners in the earliest days of the Greeks, so must the Mahabharata 

 be accepted as a record of the life of the Aryans in India a few centuries 

 before the time when the Iliad was composed ; and in the account of the 



