There can be little doubt that the original kernel of the epic has as a historical background an ancient conflict between the two neighbouring tribes of the Kurus and Panchalas, who finally coalesced into a single people. In the Yajurvedas these two tribes already appear united, and in the Kathaka King Dhritarashtra Vaichitravirya, one of the chief figures of the Mahabharata, is mentioned as a well-known person. Hence the historical germ of the great epic is to be traced to a very early period, which cannot well be later than the tenth century B.C. Old songs about the ancient feud and the heroes who played a part in it, must have been handed down by word of mouth and recited in popular assemblies or at great public sacrifices. These disconnected battle-songs were, we must assume, worked up by some poetic genius into a comparatively short epic, describing the tragic fate of the Kuru race, who, with justice and virtue on their side, perished through the treachery of the victorious sons of Pandu, with Krishna at their head. To the period of this original epic doubtless belong the traces the Mahabharata has preserved unchanged of the heroic spirit and the customs of ancient times, so different from the later state of things which the Mahabharata as a whole reflects. To this period also belongs the figure of Brahma as the highest god. The evidence of Pali literature shows that Brahma already occupied that position in Buddha's time. We may, then, perhaps assume that the original form of our epic came into being about the fifth century B.C. The oldest evidence we have for the existence of the Mahabharata in some shape or other is to be found in Açvalayana's Grihya Sutra, where a Bharata and Mahabharata are mentioned. This would also point to about the fifth century B.C. To the next stage, in which the epic, handed down by rhapsodists, swelled to a length of about 20,000 çlokas, belongs the representation of the victorious Pandus in a favourable light, and the introduction on a level with Brahma of the two other great gods, Çiva, and especially Vishnu, of whom Krishna appears as an incarnation. We gather from the account of Megasthenes that about 300 B.C., these two gods were already prominent, and the people were divided into Çivaites and Vishnuites. Moreover, the Yavanas or Greeks are mentioned in the Mahabharata as allies of the Kurus, and even the Çakas (Scythians) and Pahlavas (Parthians) are named along with them; Hindu temples are also referred to as well as Buddhist relic mounds. Thus an extension of the original epic must have taken place after 300 B.C. and by the beginning of our era.