That the Mahabharata was made a vehicle of moral and religious instruction is so apparent that it hardly requires any proof. In fact, the work has almost lost its character as an epic poem and has become, and has always been acknowledged, as a Smrti and a Dharma Sastra. Native writers and authors of treatises, so old as the Brahma Sutra, quote passages from the Bharata with the feeling of reverence due to a Dharma Sastra. The heaven which has thus been introduced ...
