ABSTRACT
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315828060/49546f0e-ce84-4e70-9b40-7107f16ee305/content/ufig_h_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>AVING seen what the ancient civilisation of Egypt can tell us concerning the after-life let us turn to India, that vast country whence China herself derived so many of her religious beliefs. Fortunately we possess a record of the beliefs of the Hindus which deals with the period contemporary, at any rate, with the New Empire in Egypt. The Mahabharata is a curious mixture of epic incidents, not unlike those which appear in Homer, and of the later Hinduism of the opening centuries of the Christian era. It may, indeed, be said that it is a store-house of beliefs belonging to every period of Indian history, for popular minstrels have continually added events and ideas in order to bring it up to date. One thing, however, clearly shows its real antiquity, namely the fact that Draupadi has five husbands, a practice so repugnant to Hindu and Aryan teaching in general that its survival in this epic shows that the revisers of the period of the Bhagugita dared not alter this incident, because it had been known and told by so many generations of story-tellers.
