Chapter III
The Epics, and Later
I. Vishṇu-Kṛishṇa
We now enter upon an age in which the old gods, Indra and Brahmā, retire to the background, while Vishṇu and Śiva stand in the forefront of the stage.
The Hindus are of the same opinion as the Latin poet: ferrea nunc aetas agitur. We are now living in an Iron Age, according to them; and it began in the year 3102 B.C., shortly after the great war described in the Mahābhārata. The date 3102, I need hardly remark, is of no historical value, being based merely upon the theories of comparatively late astronomers; but the statement as a whole is important. The Great War marks an epoch. It came at the end of what may be called the prehistoric period, and was followed by a new age. To be strictly correct, we must say that the age which followed the Great War was not new in the sense that it introduced any startling novelties that had been unknown previously; but it was new in the sense that after the Great War India speedily became the India that we know from historical
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