metempsychosis, charity, and detachment from all passions and desires in
order to arrive at absolute calm (_nirvana_). The literature it
inspired was primarily _gnomic_, that is, sententious, analogous to
that of Pythagoras, with a tendency towards little moral tales and
parables, as in the Gospel.

This literature subsequently expanded into large and even immense epic
poems, of which the principal are the _Mahabharata_ and the _Ramayana_.

THE _MAHABHARATA_; THE _RAMAYANA_.--The _Mahabharata_ (that is, the
_great history of the Bharatas_) is a legend or a novel in verse
intersected with moral digressions, with episodes vaguely related to the
subject, with discourses and prayers. There are charming episodes full of
delicate sensibility, of moving tenderness--that is to say, of human
beauty, comparable to the farewells of Hector and Andromache in Homer;
and everywhere, amid tediousness and monotony, is found a powerful and
superabundant imagination.

The _Ramayana_, the name of the author of which, Valmiki, has come
down to us, is a poem yet more vast and unequal. There are portions which
to us are quite unreadable, and there are others comparable to the most
imposing and most touching in all epic poetry. Reduced to its theme, the
subject of _Mahabharata_ is extremely simple; it is the history of
Prince Rama, dispossessed of his throne, who saw his beloved wife, Sita,
ravished by the monstrous demon Ravana, who made alliance with the good
monkeys and with them constructed a bridge over the sea to reach the
island on which Sita was detained, who vanquished and slew Ravana, who
re-found Sita, and finally went back happily to his kingdom, which had
also been re-conquered.