protegees.  Philosophically and symbolically, this is sound and true, no doubt, but one wonders whether the poem (or poems) ran so originally; whether there may not be passages written at first by Kuravist poets; or a Brahminical superimposition of motive on a poem once wholly Kshattriya, and interested only in showing forth the noble and human warrior virtues of the Kshattriya caste.  I imagine that in that second millennium B. C., in the early centuries of Kali-Yuga, you had a warrior class with their bards, inspired with high Bushido feeling,—­with chivalry and all that is fine in patricianism—­but no longer under the leadership of Adept Princes;—­the esoteric knowledge was now mainly in the hands of the Priest-class.  The Kshattriya bards made poems about the Great War, which grew and coalesced into a national epic.  Then in the course of the centuries, as learning in its higher branches became more and more a possession of the Brahmans,—­and since there was no feeling against adding to this epic whatever material came handy,—­Brahmin esotericists manipulated it with great tact and finesse into a symbol of the warfare of the Soul.

There is the story of the death of the Kurava champion Bhishma.  The Pandavas had been victorious; and Duryodhana the Kurava king appealed to Bhishma to save the situation.  Bhishma loved the Pandava princes like a father; and urged Duryodhana to end the war by granting them their rights,—­but in vain.  So next day, owing his allegiance to Duryodhana, he took the field; and

     “As a lordly tusker tramples on a field of feeble reeds,
     As a forest conflagration on the parched woodland feeds,
     Bhishma rode upon the warriors in his mighty battle car. 
     God nor mortal chief could face him in the gory field of war.” *

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* The quotations are from Mr. Romesh Dutt’s translation.
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Thus victorious, he cried out to the vanquished that no appeal for mercy would be unheard; that he fought not against the defeated, the worn-out, the wounded, or “a woman born.”  Hearing this, Krishna advised Arjuna that the chance to turn the tide had come.  The young Sikhandin had been born a woman, and changed afterwards by the Gods into a man.  Let Sikhandin fight in the forefront of the battle, and the Pandavas would win, and Bhishma be slain.—­Arjuna, who loved Bhishma as dearly as Bhishma loved him and his brothers, protested; but Krishna announced that Bhishma was so doomed to die, and on the following day; a fate decreed, and righteously to be brought about by the stratagem.  So it happened: 

     “Bhishma viewed the Pandav forces with a calm unmoving face;
     Saw not Arjun’s bow Gandiva, saw not Bhima’s mighty mace;
     Smiled to see the young Sikhandin rushing to the battle’s
          fore
     Like the white foam on the billow when the mighty storm
          winds roar;
     Thought upon the word he plighted, and the oath that he had
          sworn,
     Dropt his arms before the warrior that was, but a woman
          born;”