The History of Ancient India

The hymns of Visvamitra the philosophy of Kapila and the poetry of KalidAsa have no higher lessons for the modern reader than the deep causes which led to the decadence of our political Iife and the ascendancy of priests. [...] it.will be observed that this Second Period w/s period of the submission of the people under the BP.ahmans and the Kshatriyas and of the submission of the Kshatriyas themselves under the Brahmans. [...] We may.therfore suppose these to have been composed in the r3th and r2th centuries B. C. And the Upanishads which mark the close of Biahmana literature were composed about the Irth century B. C. Janaka the King of the Videhas gave a start to the Upanishads ; we may therefore suppose the Videhas and the Koshalas to have flourished about ' zoo to r 000 B. C as the Kurus and the Panchal [...] It was the period when the nations described in the national Epics of India lived and fought ; when the Kurus and the Panchalas the Kosalas and the Videhas held sway along the valley of the Ganges. [...] proclaimed the duties of citizens and members of fa.milies and directed Buddhist missionaries to proceed to the ends of the earth to mix with the rich and the poor and to proclaim the truth.