There is this difference between the two epics,—­I speak of the nucleus-poems in each case;—­the Mahabharata seems much more a natural growth, a national epic,—­the work not of one man, but of many poets celebrating through many centuries a tradition not faded from the national memory;—­but the Ramayana is more a structural unity; it bears the marks of coming from one creative mind:  even western criticism accepts Valmiki (whoever he may have been) as its author.  To him it is credited in Indian tradition; which ascribes the authorship of the Mahabharata to Vyasa, the reputed compiler of the Vedas;—­and this last is manifestly not to be taken literally; for it is certain that a great age elapsed between the Vedas and the Epics.  So I think that the Mahabharata grew up in the centuries, many or few, that followed the Great War,—­or, say, during the second millennium B.C.; that in that millennium, during some great ‘day’ of literary creation, it was redacted into a single poem;—­ and that, the epic habit having thus been started, a single poet, Valmiki, in some succeeding ‘day,’ was prompted to make another epic, on the other great traditional saga-cycle, the story of Rama.  But since that time, and all down through the centuries, both poems have been growing ad lib.

This is an endeavor to take a bird’s-eye view of the whole subject; not to look at the evidence through a microscope, in the modern critical way.  It is very unorthodox, but I believe it is the best way:  the bird’s eye sees most; the microscope sees least; the former takes in whole landscapes in proportion; the latter gets confused with details that seem, under that exaggeration, too highly important,—­but which might be negatived altogether could you see the whole thing at once.  A telescope for that kind of seeing is not forthcoming; but the methods of thought that H. P. Blavatsky taught us supply at least the first indications of what it may be like:  they give us the first lenses.  As our perceptions grow under their influence, doubtless new revelations will be made; and we shall see more, and further.  All we can do now is to retire from the confusion brought about by searching these far stars with a microscope; to look less at the results of such searching, than at the old traditions themselves, making out what we can of them through what Theosophic lenses we have.  We need not be misled by the ridiculous idea that civilization is a new thing.  It is only the bias of the age; the next age will count it foolishness.—­But to return to our epics.—­