III. _The “Ramayana” only a nature myth._--While one scholar finds _history_ in the pages of the “Ramayana,” and discovers in its interesting details a poetical version of the conquest of Southern India by the Aryans, another, with a turn for mythological interpretation, assures us that it is only a nature myth. “The whole story,” he writes, “is clearly an account of how the full moon wanes and finally disappears from sight during the last fourteen days of the lunar month, which are the fourteen years of Rama and Sita’s exile. Her final disappearance is represented by her rape by Ravana, and her rescue means the return of the new moon. In the course of the story the triumph of the dark night, lightened by the moon and stars, is further represented by the conquest of Vali, the god of tempests of the monkey race, who had obscured the stars.”[51] PART II THE MAHABHARATA THE MAHABHARATA CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY REMARKS Standing on the beautiful fluted column of red sandstone, known as the Kutub Minar, which towers loftily above the lifeless quietude of ancient Delhi, the eye surveys a landscape which embraces one of the most classic regions in Hindustan. Across the ruin-strewn plain, towards the lordly minarets and cupolas of modern Delhi, the spectator may note, just a little towards the east, the massive remains of the _Poorana killa_, or old fort, which still preserves, in its traditionary name of _Indrapat_ or _Indraprasta_, a suggestion of the glory it enjoyed some fifteen centuries before Christ. Not only in India and to the Hindus is the _Indraprasta_ a name of reverence; for, away in distant Cambodia, the people believe that they are descended from colonists who immigrated into the southern peninsula from the far-off banks of the Jumna, and the stupendous remains of Angkor and Battambang, near the great lake of Toulé-sap, point unmistakably to Hindu and Buddhist origin, and bear silent witness to the existence, in the remote past, of a powerful and flourishing kingdom of Indian origin.[52] Delhi, and the great plain north of it, are associated with the most stirring events in both the ancient and modern history of India, and have witnessed the most decisive struggles for empire which have occurred south of the Himalayas.