Foreword
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are the two renowned epics of India. The Mahabharata as its name hints tells the story of the noble descendants of King Bharata. Its reputed author was Vedavyasa.
The Mababharata is known as Panchama Veda, the fifth Veda. It was specially written in order to make the sublime knowledge of the four Vedas available to the common folks. Few books have ever exerted such profound influence on the minds of men as the Mahabharata.
The immortal epic Mahabharata is unique in every way. It gives an account of persons with different qualities. maxims for right conduct and indicates the ways so realize God. With its hundred thousand slokas, it is a "full treatise on the science of society giving portraits, customs. heroic deeds of persons and contains a picture of universal movement light and shades". In his own inimitable manner Vyasa has brought home to us the truth that sin and sinfulness are certain to be destroyed and even good souls, if they associate with these.
Philosophy seldom appeals to the mind. But in Mahabharata even the most abstruse philosophic truths are put across by means of stories and legends. This is the secret of its popularity among all classes of people.
We may find priceless teachings in the great Hindu poem of the Mahabharata. This is a book which must be placed in the hands of the young to awaken in them an awareness of our rich moral heritage and to lift them from the dropping faith in values .
Sanskrit, as a tool of cultural communication, holds a unique place among the languages of the world. Nowadays, there are very few youngsters who are familiar with Sanskrit to read through the book in the original. The only alternative is to read 'translations.
Dr. Nanduri Ramakrishnamacharya has rendered the epic into English. Nothing of importance in the ethical and the spiritual teaching of Mahabharata is left out. At places, it reads not as a summary, but the original. Reading the book is liberal and religious education.
A very noteworthy point about the book is its excellent readability. The book is a tribute to the scholarship and erudition of Dr. Acharya. We hope that this volume will be of considerable value for both spiritual men and laymen.
Preface
The Mahabharata is the largest literary work ever composed in the annals of the world. It comprises eighteen voluminous treatises containing about one lakh verses of four lines each. In sheer size it is six times bulkier than the Iliad and the Odyssey put together.
The Mahabharata is the most important landmark in the cultural evolution of mankind 'and the biggest heritage which ancient India has bequeathed to the succeeding generations.
However, this modest book,-the epitome of the great Indian Epic, the Mahabharata in a nutshell-is conceived as a compendious composition mirroring the monumental work in a small compass.
The Sanskrit Mahabharata-to borrow the native idiom is a gigantic equatorial forest harbouring a dazzling variety of flora and fauna, girdling the globe. This little volume, is neither a translation nor a judicious abridgement of the original. To continue the metaphor. this is a mini-municipal park. However, sincere care has been taken to transplant all the botanical specimens from the mother forest into the miniature nursery.
The Mahabharata is essentially a literary masterpiece narrating the secular as well as the spiritual experiences connected with the Bharata Dynasty extending over several generations. Bhagavadgita, the Song Celestial is a part and parcel of this epic. The Mahabharata together with its innumerable parables and fables. episodes and anecdotes has propounded a theory of philosophical Relativity, harmonizing the secular and the spiritual into a synthesis and symphony wherein the parameters and paradoxes. contradictions and conflicts of life lose their static connotations to acquire a dynamic concord and concomitance.
Thus all the concepts including truth and non-violence. justice and fair play, crime and punishment. good and evil right and wrong etc. are viewed by the Mahabharata and evaluated vis-a-vis their geocentric longitude and latitude. different chronological axes, and diverse human aptitudes. It is maintained that no man can ever bathe in the same river twice; the water is not the same; the man as well is not the same. Change is the inexorable' law of nature as well as the secret of the atoms. The Mahabharata has dealt with the world of relativity synthesizing secular dimensions with spiritual dynamics. Thus no concept or ideal, according to the Mahabharata, has an absolute value or a circumscribed meaning. Sri Krishna, the practical philosopher par excellence, has been the author of this way of life distinct from the doctrinaire approach of didactic dogmatism.
The original Mahabharata in the Sanskrit is replete with many 'Majestic Maxims' 'antithetical. aphorisms' with their crisp cadences and metrical melodies: I have tried, in my own humble way to translate some of them into English and to incorporate them into this book. Thus this venture is not a prosaic paraphrase of the poetry and philosophy embedded in the Mahabharata. I have tried to add explanation as well as expansion, elucidation and elaboration wherever necessary. Here and there, there may be some sentences influenced by the Sanskrit syntax and Indian idiom. The native reader will of course experience no difficulty with them. Even the foreign student, I hope, will be pleased to enjoy the unfamiliar fragrance and flavour for a while. The English language is known for its catholicity and capacity for absorption and assimilation of international influences and is certainly richer benefitted by cross-fertilisation of cultures.
A glossary is appended for the benefit of the reader. I hope, the prospective citizens of the world, in the rising generations of all the countries, will find ample corroboration for their convictions in this book as the Mahabharata is not merely an Indian classic but a truly international epic. World literature is one, though written in different languages. Mankind is one though designated into different races. Mythology is the shell and man is the kernel of the Mahabharata. Unity in diversity is the soul of the whole story. The burden of the song of this sublime saga of humanity, is 'elasticity of the mind for the sake of enlightenment'.
In English there are very few books on the Mahabharata. They have viewed the epic from different angles. This book contains a connected account of the whole story, strictly following the Sanskrit original. I have appended a chapter, The Mahabharata-A Chronological Study, wherein I have incorporated all the theories enunciated so far by eminent scholars, Indian as well as foreign, who have done commendable research to determine the date of the Mahabharata war and the composition of the epic. Likewise I have appended another chapter, Mahabharata=Myth and Reality analysing the latest views of eminent scholars as well as historians and archaeologists. In another chapter, I have traced the historical evolution of the epic and discussed the problem of authorship and redactors exhaustively. In this sense, I think, this is the first comprehensive book, in a concise compass, on the Mahabharata in English.
In the concluding verses of the epic, the Suta in his convocation address of the Satrayaga where the Mahabharata was narrated to the ascetics of Naimisa forest, says,
"Anything elsewhere is an echo of what is here, What is not here is nowhere.”
The earnest reader of the Mahabharata is twice blessed because he can secure the best of both the worlds, the sceptre here and the salvation in the next.
Even a casual reader who comprehends a single sentence or a solitary syllable will find the Mahabharata to be a sublime, spiritual sanctuary to which one can return for refuge, securing comfort and consolation, confidence and candour.
Anybody, who masters the epic, will become a practical philosopher who can rise above life's perplexities and puzzles, doubts and dilemmas and face all challenges with courage and conviction, scaling summits of prosperity and peace, success and self-realisation.
The claim made by Suta many centuries ago is more or less valid even today.
The Mahabharata, I hope as the author mentions, will illumine the mind of man as long as the sun and the moon shine and the stars twinkle, as it portrays the Eternal Drama of human existence, with all its ironies and intricacies, subtleties and susceptibilities, suffocations and satisfactions, mysteries and melodies, the psychological heights and emotional depths.
In conclusion, I thank the T. T. D. Tirupati for sponsoring the publication of this book. In particular, I offer my hearty congratulations to Shri P. V. R. K. Prasad, I.A.S. Former Executive Officer, T. T. D.
Contents
PART I
Introduction
1
The Fifth Veda
2
ADI PARVA
Ancestors
5
The Distinguished Father and the Dear Daughter'
3
Marriage of Devayani
8
4
The Baby of the Birds
13
'Goddess Ganga in Human Form
17
6
The Fisher Girl of Fragrant Glamour
19
7
Vichitravirya
21
Son of the Sun God
26
9
Pandu Cursed
28
10
Birth of Pandavas
29
11
The Princes
31
12
The Golden Ball
33
Ekalavya: The Proverbial Pupil of the Prestigious Preceptor
37
14
Public Examination of the Prowess of the Princes
39
15
Guru Dakshina
44
16
The Wax Palace
46
The Escape
50
18
Hidimbi
52
Baka
53
20
Draupadi's Svayamvara
56
Home Coming of the Pandavas
65
22
Arjuna's Pilgrimage
70
23
Subhadra
72
24
The Khandava Ordeal
74
25
Mandapala
75
SABHA PARVA
Strength as well as Strategem
78
27
Jarasandha
81
The Digvijaya
84
The Rajasuya
87
30
Sisupal
89
Invitation to the Game of Dice
92
32
The Game of Dice
96
The Disgrace
99
34
Game of Dice-The Second Round
105
ARANYA PARVA
35
The Forest Exite
110
36
JanakaGita
111
Vidura
113
38
Maitreya
115
Saumbhaka
117
40
The Domestic Debate
121
41
The Mystic Missiles
123
42
Arjuna at Amaravati
126
43
Blessing in Disguise
127
The Nivatakavachas
129
45
Catharsis
130
Kali
134
47
Karkola
137
48
The Second Svayamvara
139
49
The Pilgrimages
145
Rishyasringa
146
51
Agastya
Sukanya
148
Sibi
54
Bhagiratha
149
55
Parasurama
150
The Golden Lotus
151
57
The Python
155
58
Markandeya
157
59
The Vanity Fair
159
60
The Bitter Boomerang
161
61
TIle Vaishnavayaga
164
62
The Abduction
166
63
The Classic Quiz
169
VIRATA PARVA
64
Message of Dhaumya
175
The Incognito
179
66
The Ribald Lover
181
67
The Southern Battle for the Cattle
68
The Prince of Braggarts
190
69
The Northern Battle for the Cattle
194
The Revelation
71
The Wedding
198
UDYOGA PARVA
Peace Parley by the Panchala Priest
206
73
"Parthasarathi"-Arjuna's Charioteer
208
Flattered Vanity
211
Pride Goeth Before Fall
215
76
Pleasant Platitudes and Hollow Hands
217
77
The Sleepless Night
219
Kunti and Karna
221
79
The Plenipotentiary of Peace
224
80
Karna and Krishna
234
The Pandava Generalissimo
236
82
Supreme Commander of the Kaurava Armies
239
83
Rukmi the Rejected Renegade
243
The Solitary Pilgrim of Peace
245
BHISMA PARVA
85
The War Reporter
247
86
The March of the Kaurava Army
248
The Martial Code
250
88
Dharmaputra Seeks Benediction
252
Bhagavadgita, The Song Celestial
254
90
The Great War-First Day
265
91
The Great War-The Second Day
269
The Great War-The Third Day
272
93
The Great War-The Fourth Day
277
94
The Great War-The Fifth Day
280
95
The Great War-The Sixth Day
282
The Great War-The Seventh Day
28S
97
The Great War-The Eighth Day
288
98
The Great War-The Ninth Day
293
The Secret Meeting
297
100
The Great War-The Tenth Day
299
101
Karna and Bhisma
304
DRONA PARVA
102
The Great War-The Eleventh Day
306
103
The Preceptor's Promise
308
104
The Great War-The Twelfth Day
313
Supratika
316
106
The Great War-The Thirteenth Day
320
107
Saindhava Jayadratha
322
108
Abhimanyu
323
109
The Father's Grief
326
The Vow
328
The Great War-The Fourteenth Day
331
112
Duryodhana's Discomfiture
334
Satyaki and Bhurisrava
336
114
Bhurisrava
338
Bhima's Exploits
341
116
Humiliation of Bhima
343
Death of Saindhava
344
118
The Nocturnal Fight
346
119
The Great War-The Fifteenth Day
349
KARNA PARVA
120
The Great War-The Sixteenth Day
355
The Great War-The Seventeenth Day
358
122
Karna and Yudhisthira
360
Beloved Brothers At Loggerheads
363
124
Death of Duhsasana
366
125
Fall of Karna
367
Duryodhana's Grief
371
SALYA PARVA
The Great War-The Eighteenth Day
373
128
Hypnotism of Hope
The Final Encounter
377
Balarama's Indictment
379
SAUPTIKA PARVA
131
The Massacre at Midnight
382
132
The Gruesome Gem
385
STRI PARVA
133
The Condolences
387
The Sorrowful Secret
390
SANTI PARVA
135
The Integral Equilibrium
392
136
The Coronation
393
ANUSASANIKA PARVA
The Instruction
395
ASVAMEDHA PARVA
138
Sri Krishna's Exit
397
Udanka
140
The Still-Born Child
400
141
The Asvamedha
401
142
Saktuprastha
404
ASRAMA VASA PARVA
143
Death of Dhritarashtra
410
MAUSALA PARVA
144
The Drunken Debacle
412
MAHAPRASTHANIKA & SVARGAROHANA PARVAS
The Mahaprasthana
416
PART II
A CHRONOLOGICAL STUDY
Authorship of The Mahabharata Vedavyasa
423
Evolution of the Epic
425
Ugrasravas and the Sattrayaga of Saunaka
429
Repetitions
437
Recensions
438
Commentaries
439
The Mahabharata-A Chronological Study
440
Geographical Evidence
449
Evidences of Sutra Literature
451
Astronomical References
452
Vidura Seva Ashram Seminar
455
Objections against the Traditional Theory
461
Archaeology
465
Mahabharata-Myth and Reality Glossary
473
Glossary
487
Index
493
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