as our writer would have had. The literature of the third century — where I have placed our author — is net well determined. Of the dramas, poems, and Purānas none is placed in the third century definitely as far as I know. It is possible that some interpolations in Purānas and in two epics belong to this date, but as yet they are not carefully singled out.
Purānas as well as the two epics would form very doubtful material for facts, as far as the privileges of different varnas are concerned. The motives of the compilers of both classes of literature were nearly the same. Authors of one would support a thesis by a Vedic text, while those of the other would maintain it by a tale. For these reasons the Purānas in the present condition of research are of little value to us.
However different is the case of literary productions like dramas and poems, yet this source of information has one serious flaw — the distance of centuries from our document. Almost all the dramas that are knows to us have been placed somewhere between the sixth and the eighth centuries. These dramas to a certain extent represent the life of the people of the period.[1] But while
- ↑ Here I feel bound to make some digression to bring to the notice of the reader, that we should accept with great caution the manners and customs as they are reflected in the dramas, as real manners and real customs. We should not take these customs and manners too seriously, for they may be as imaginary as the plot. As a matter of fact only a few dramas in the various Indian literatures reflect the actual conditions of society. First of all it is customary among poets to describe manners that are more charming than true. There is a possibility that some manners may become standard among dramatists and later dramatists may find it difficult to divorce themselves from such a tradition. I have noticed in Bengali literature, many novels and plays full of supposed Rajput man-
