The shastras are a part of the Smriti (“Remembered”; traditional) literature which, like the sutra literature that preceded it, stresses the religious merit of gifts to Brahmans. Because kings often transferred the revenues of villages or groups of villages to Brahmans, either singly or in corporate groups, the status and wealth of the priestly class rose steadily. Living in the settlements called agraharas, the Brahmans were encouraged to devote themselves to the study of the Vedas and the subsidiary studies associated with them, but many Brahmans also developed the sciences of the period, such as mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, while others cultivated literature.
The Smriti texts have had considerable influence on orthodox Hindus, and Hindu family law was based on them. Although there is evidence of divorce in early Indian history, by the Gupta period marriage was solemnized by lengthy sacred rites and was virtually indissoluble. Intercaste marriage became rarer and more difficult, and child marriage and the rite of suttee (or sati; ritual immolation of a wife on her husband’s pyre after his death) were already in existence, although less frequent than they later became. One of the earliest definite records of a widow burning herself on her husband’s pyre is found in an inscription from Eran, Madhya Pradesh, dated 510, but the custom had been followed sporadically long before this. From the 6th century ce onward, such occurrences became more frequent, though still quite rare, in certain parts of India, particularly in Rajasthan. Epics and Puranas
During the centuries immediately preceding and following the beginning of the Common Era, the recension of the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, took shape out of existing heroic epic stories, mythology, philosophy, and above all the discussion of the problem of dharma. Much of the material in the epics dates far back into the Vedic period, while the rest continued to be added until well into the medieval period. It is conventional, however, to date the more or less final recension of the Sanskrit texts of the epics to the period from 200 bce to 200 ce.
Apart from their influence as Sanskrit texts, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata have made an impact in South and Southeast Asia, where their stories have been continually retold in vernacular and oral versions, and their influence on Indian and Southeast Asian art has been profound. Even today the epic stories and tales are part of the early education of all Hindus. A continuous reading of the Ramayana—whether in Sanskrit or in a vernacular version such as that of Tulsidas (16th century)—is an act of great merit, and a popular enactment of Tulsidas’s version of the Ramayana, called the Ramcharitmanas, is an annual event across northern India. The Ramayana’s influence is expressed in a dazzling variety of local and regional performance traditions—story, dance, drama, art—and extends to the composition of explicit “counterepics,” such as those published by the Tamil separatist E.V. Ramasami beginning in 1930.
The Ramayana
The narrative of Rama is recounted in the Sanskrit epic the Ramayana (“Rama’s Journey”), traditionally regarded as the work of the sage Valmiki. Rama is deprived of the kingdom to which he is heir and is exiled to the forest with his wife Sita and his brother Lakshmana. While there, Sita is abducted by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka. In their search for Sita, the brothers ally themselves with a monkey king whose general, the monkey god Hanuman, finds Sita in Lanka. A cosmic battle ensues; Ravana is defeated, and Sita is rescued. When Rama is restored to his kingdom, the populace casts doubt on whether Sita remained chaste while a captive. To reassure them, Rama banishes Sita to a hermitage, where she bears him two sons; eventually she reenters the earth from which she had been born. Rama’s reign becomes the prototype of the harmonious and just kingdom, to which all kings should aspire. Rama and Sita set the ideal of conjugal love, and Rama and Lakshmana represent perfect fraternal love. Everything in the epic is designed for harmony, which after being disrupted is at last regained.
Rama and Lakshmana attended by Hanuman in the forest, detail of relief inspired by the Ramayana, from Nacna Kuthara, Madhya Pradesh, 5th century ce.P. Chandra
The Ramayana identifies Rama as another incarnation of Vishnu and remains the principal source for the worship of Rama. Though not as long as the Mahabharata, the Ramayana contains a great deal of religious material in the form of myths, stories of great sages, and accounts of exemplary human behaviour.
Although Hindus consider Rama to be the epitome of dharma, many passages from the epic seem inconsistent with this status and have provoked debate through the centuries. Rama’s killing of the monkey king Valin and his banishment of the innocent Sita, for example, have been troublesome to subsequent tradition. These problems of the “subtlety” of dharma and the inevitability of its violation, central themes in both epics, remained the locus of considerable argument throughout Indian history, both at the level of abstract philosophy and in local performance traditions. In Kerala, men of the low-ranking artisan caste worship Valin through rites of dance-possession that implicitly protest their ancestors’ deaths as soldiers conscripted by high-caste leaders such as Rama. Women performers throughout India have emphasized Sita’s story—her foundling infancy, her abduction by Ravana, her trial by fire, her childbirth in exile—thereby openly challenging Rama. The Mahabharata
The Mahabharata (“Great Epic of the Bharata Dynasty”), a text of some 100,000 verses attributed to the sage Vyasa, was preserved both orally and in manuscript form for centuries. The central plot concerns a great battle between the five sons of Pandu (Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva), called the Pandavas, and the sons of Pandu’s brother Dhritarasta. The battle eventually leads to the destruction of the entire clan, save for one survivor who continues the dynasty. As each of the heroes is the son of a god (Dharma, Vayu, Indra, and the Ashvins, respectively), the epic is deeply infused with religious implications. Hindus regard the Mahabharata as a compendium of dharma, and many passages in it debate dilemmas posed by dharma. Because of this, some Hindus refer to the work as the “fifth Veda.” Religious practice takes the form of Vedic ritual on official occasions as well as pilgrimages and, to some extent, the adoration of gods. Apart from the Bhagavadgita (part of book 6), much of the didactic material is found in the Book of the Forest (book 3), in which sages teach the exiled heroes, and in the Book of Peace (book 12), in which the wise Bhishma expounds on religious and moral matters.
The Vedic gods lost importance in these texts and survive as figures of folklore. Prajapati of the Upanishads is popularly personified as the god Brahma, who creates all classes of beings and dispenses benefits. Of far greater importance is Krishna. In the epic he is a hero, a leader of his people, and an active helper of his friends. His biography as it is known later is not worked out; still, the text is the source of the early worship of Krishna. Krishna is not portrayed as a god everywhere within the text; even as a god he has, in many places, superhuman rather than divine stature. He is occasionally, but not significantly, identified with Vishnu. Later, as one of the most important of the incarnations of Vishnu, Krishna is portrayed as an incarnate god. In the Mahabharata he is primarily a hero, a chieftain of a tribe, and an ally of the Pandavas, the heroes of the Mahabharata. He accomplishes heroic feats with the Pandava prince Arjuna. Typically, he helps the Pandava brothers to settle in their kingdom and, when the kingdom is taken from them, to regain it. In the process he emerges as a great teacher who reveals the Bhagavadgita, the most important religious text of Hinduism, in which he also reveals his own status as the supreme god. In the further development of the Krishna story, this dharmic aspect recedes and makes way for an idyllic myth about Krishna’s boyhood, when he plays with and loves young cowherd women (gopis) in the village while hiding from an uncle who threatens to kill him. The influence of this theme on art has been profound.