THE GREAT EPIC OF INDIA.
The Great Epic of India. By E. Washburn Hopkins. (Edward Arnold. 10s.)—The sub-title of this kook, " Its Character and Origin," indicates the purpose of its author in dealing with the great epic of India as being to place analysis before speculation. "In recent studies of the great epic this order has been reversed, for a, method calling itself synthesis has devoted itself chiefly to dwelling on epic uniformity, and has either discarded analysis altogether or made it subject to the results of synthetic speculation." Mr. Hopkins's treatment, therefore, of the Mababharata is necessarily controversial. In its case, he con- tends, the synthetic theory has not succeeded in winning over a single scholar to accept its chief conclusions, either as regards the contention that the epic was composed in 500 B.C., or in respect of the massed books of didactic material and their original coherence with the narrative. He allows, however, that while the theory has failed as a, whole, "yet owing to the manner in which it was first invented by its clever inventor, and perhaps also to its sharing in the charm which attaches to all works of the imagination, it has had a certain success with those who have not clearly distinguished between, what was essential and advert: titions in the hypothesis. The Rev. Mr. Dahlmann, to whom we owe the theory, has shown that epic legends and didactic motif are closely united in the epic as it is to-day ; but this is a very different proposition from that of his main thesis, which is that complete books of didactic content were parts of the original epic. One of these statements is an indubitable fact ; the other a historical absurdity." As this large volume is to a great extent intended as a counterblast to Mr. Dahlmann's work, it is largely argumentative, and is capable of being fully under- stood only by experts. But whoever takes even a general interest in the marvellous epic of India cannot fail to be impressed with Mr. Hopkins's great and various learning and his earnestness, which, especially when he deals with the religious aspects of his subject, rises into eloquence.
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