[Footnote 405: For the history of the Râmâyaṇa and Mahâbhârata and the dates assignable to the different periods of growth, see Winternitz, _Gesch. Ind. Lit._ vol. I. p. 403 and p. 439. Also Hopkins' _Great Epic of India_, p. 397. The two poems had assumed something like their present form in the second and fourth centuries A.D. respectively. These are probably the latest dates for any substantial additions or alterations and there is considerable evidence that poems called Bhârata and Râmâyaṇa were well known early in the Christian era. Thus in Aśvaghosha's Sûtrâlankâra (story XXIV) they are mentioned as warlike poems inculcating unbuddhist views. The Râmâyaṇa is mentioned in the Mahâvibhâshâ and was known to Vasubandhu (_J.R.A.S._ 1907, p. 99). A Cambojan inscription dating from the first years of the seventh century records arrangements made for the recitation of the Râmâyaṇa, Purâṇa and complete (aśesha) Bhârata, which implies that they were known in India considerably earlier. See Barth, _Inscrip. Sanscrites de Cambodge_, pp. 29-31. The Mahabharata itself admits that it is the result of gradual growth for in the opening section it says that the Bhârata consists of 8,800 verses, 24,000 verses and 100,000 verses.] [Footnote 406: Hardy, _Indische Religionsgeschichte_, p. 101.] [Footnote 407: But some of these latter sacrifice images made of dough instead of living animals.] [Footnote 408: It is said that the Agnishtoma was performed in Benares in 1898, and in the last few years I am told that one or two Vedic sacrifices have been offered annually in various parts of southern India. I have myself seen the sites where such sacrifices were offered in 1908-9 in Mysore city and in Chidambaram, and in 1912 at Wei near Poona. The most usual form of sacrifice now-a-days is said to be the Vâjapeya. Much Vedic ritual is still preserved in the domestic life of the Nambathiri and other Brahmans of southern India. See Cochin, _Tribes and Castes_, and Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of southern India._] [Footnote 409: The outline of a stûpa may be due to imitation of houses constructed with curved bamboos as Vincent Smith contends (_History of Fine Art_, p. 17). But this is compatible with the view that stone buildings with this curved outline had come to be used specially as funeral monuments before Buddhism popularized in India and all Eastern Asia the architectural form called stûpa.] [Footnote 410: The temple of Aihole near Badami seems to be a connecting link between a Buddhist stûpa with a pradakshiṇa path and a Hindu shrine.] [Footnote 411: In most temples (at least in southern India) there are two images: the _mûla-vigraha_ which is of stone and fixed in the sanctuary, and the _utsava-vigraha_ which is smaller, made of metal and carried in processions.]