of matter which it was necessary to handle--the great epic is about
eight times as long as the Iliad and Odyssey put together--must be our
excuse for many imperfections of treatment in this part of the work.
The reader will gain at least a view of the religious development as
it is exhibited in the literature, and therefore, as, far as possible,
in chronological order. The modern sects and the religions of the hill
tribes of India form almost a necessary supplement to these nobler
religions of the classical literature; the former because they are the
logical as well as historical continuation of the great Hindu
sectarian schisms, the latter because they give the solution of some
problems connected with Çivaism, and, on the other hand, offer useful
un-Aryan parallels to a few traits which have been preserved in the
earliest period of the Aryans.[28]

* * * * *


FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Megasthenes, Fr. XLI, ed. Schwanbeck.]

[Footnote 2: Epic literature springs from lower castes than
that of the priest, but it has been worked over by
sacerdotal revisers till there is more theology than epic
poetry in it.]

[Footnote 3: See Weber, _Sanskrit Literature_, p. 224;
Windisch, _Greek Influence on Indian Drama_; and Lévi, _Le
théâtre indien_. The date of the Renaissance is given as
"from the first century B.C. to at least the third century