epics comparison

[Klaus Karttunen]

Two comments to the question of epics comparison:
The comparison between the Indian  and the Greek as well as Germanic 
epics was rather common in early Indology. Adolf Holtzmann the Elder 
made comparisons in the 1840s and some thirty years later Albrecht Weber 
made an unsuccesful attempt to show Homeric influences in the plot of 
the Ramayana.
As to the motif of a bow hard to bend, I think this is rather common in 
Indo-European traditions, not only in the R. and the Odyssey. It is 
certainly found in the Nibelunge Not and I think in Iranian and in some 
further sources (I have no references at hand).

Klaus