The Heroic Age of India: A Comparative Study

This book contains an in-depth analysis of the two Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, with a view to studying these Sanskrit heroic poems as a parallel to similar poems of European lands. In this work, N.K. Sidhanta has examined these poems with a view to discover the kernel of the epic stories to which substantial additions have been made in the course of centuries. The author has also taken into account the various versions of these works besides discussing the problem of their chronology and has made judicious use of the Pauranic evidence. The masterly exposition of the subject based entirely on the study of the original material, the attempts at the reconstruction of the society, government and religion by the author, should prove to be of absorbing interest to those engaged in the study of India's past. The author has also appended detailed notes on the art of war, trade, code of law, social classes, food and funeral ceremonies of the Epic period, providing thereby much new information.