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[Footnote 55: The epic does not care much for castes in some passages. In one such it is said that members of all castes become priests when they go across the Gomal, iii. 84. 48.]
[Footnote 56: xii. 319. 87 ff. (pr[ra]pya j[=n][=a]nam ... ç[=u]dr[=a]d api); xii. 328. 49 (çr[=a]vayee caturo var(n.)(=a]n). The epic regards itself as more than equivalent (adhikam) to the four Vedas, i. 1. 272.]
[Footnote 57: Some ascribe the sams[=a]ra doctrine to Buddhistic influence—a thesis supported only by the fact that this occurs in late Brahmanic passages and Upanishads. But the assumption that Upanishads do not precede Buddha is scarcely tenable. The Katha, according to Weber (Sits. Berl. Ak. 1890, p. 930), is late (Christian!): according to Oldenberg and Whitney, early (Buddha, p. 56; Proc. AOS. May, 1886).]
[Footnote 58: xii. 295.5-6.]
[Footnote 59: Noteworthy is the fact that parts of the Civaite thirteenth book seem to be most Buddhistic (ch. i.; 143. 48, etc.), and monotheistic (16. 12 ff.): though the White Islanders are made Vishnuite in the twelfth Compare Holtzmann, ad. loc.]
[Footnote 60: Nirv[=a]na, loosely used; termini technici; possibly the evils of the fourth age; the mention of (Buddhist) temples, etc.)
[Footnote 61: On this point we agree neither with Weber, who regards the avatars as an imitation of the Incarnation (Ind. St. ii. p. 169), nor with Schroeder, who (Literatur und Cultur, p. 330) would derive the notion from the birth-stories of Buddha. In our opinion the avatar-theory is older than either and is often only an assimilation of outlying totem-gods to the
