Editing History of India (section)

==== Sanskrit epics ====
{{Main|Mahabharata|Ramayana}}
{{see also|List of historic Indian texts|List of Hindu texts}}
[[File:Kurukshetra.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Manuscript illustration of the [[Battle of Kurukshetra]].]]

The Sanskrit epics ''Ramayana'' and ''Mahabharata'' were composed during this period.<ref>{{cite book|author=Valmiki|author-link=Valmiki|url=https://archive.org/details/ramayanaofva01valm/page/23|title=The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India, Volume 1: Balakanda|date=10 April 1990|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|isbn=978-0-691-01485-2|editor-last1=Goldman|editor-first1=Robert P.|editor-link1=Robert P. Goldman|location=Princeton, New Jersey|page=[https://archive.org/details/ramayanaofva01valm/page/23 23]|editor-last2=Pollock|editor-first2=Sheldon|editor-link2=Sheldon Pollock}}</ref> The ''Mahabharata'' remains the longest single poem in the world.<ref>Romila Thapar, ''A History of India Part 1'', p. 31.</ref> Historians formerly postulated an "epic age" as the milieu of these two epic poems, but now recognise that the texts went through multiple stages of development over centuries.{{sfn|Upinder Singh|2008|pp=18–19}} The existing texts of these epics are believed to belong to the post-Vedic age, between {{circa}} 400&nbsp;BCE and 400&nbsp;CE.{{sfn|Upinder Singh|2008|pp=18–19}}<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brockington|first=J. L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HR-_LK5kl18C&pg=PA26|title=The Sanskrit epics, Part 2|publisher=Brill|year=1998|isbn=978-90-04-10260-6|volume=12|page=21}}</ref>