MAHABHARATA : Original Sanskrit text with English translation

[MANISH MODI]

नमो वीतरागाय

NAMO VITARAGAYA

Jay Jinendra

महाभारत

MAHABHARATA

Sanskrit text with English translation

Sanskrit text according to Chitrashala Press, Pune

English tr. by MN Dutt

Ed. by Dr Sharma and Dr Bimali

South Asian Studies

Epic

Sanskrit

English

Set of 9 books

2008     24 x 17 cm     6340 pages

Deluxe Hardcover Edition      Rs. 8000 per set

The Work and its Significance

The Mahabharata is an Indian Epic. It is also called the fifth Veda and its pre-eminence, along with the Ramayana’s, in South-Asian Studies is universally acknowledged.

It extols its own greatness in the following words:

"yad ihasti tad anyatra yan nehasti na tat kvacit"

Whatever is here is elsewhere; whatever is not here, is nowhere.

The Mahabharata contains not only the celebrated Shrimadbhagavadgita but also a number of other such texts which are themselves independent treatises such as the Anugita. It is a shining example of post-Vedic Indian literature.

Chief Protagonists

Krishna : The greatest hero of the Mahabharata. The man who led the forces of goodness with great assurance, even when the line between the good and the bad was blurred.

Bhishma : In his vow of celibacy, taken to assuage his father’s desire for a new wife, lay the seeds of the Mahabharata. Bhishma led an extraordinary life and his decisions had vast repercussions.

Kunti : Mother of the Pandavas, an innocent and forgiving woman with the strength to forbear each blow that life sent her way.

Gandhari : Struggled to escape the web of political intrigue she was trapped in. She was a helpless woman enmeshed in an intensely male dominated world, a strong mother vexed by her son  Duryodhana’s machinations.

Karna : The eldest brother of the Pandavas and the most valiant of men. The master warrior who sought neither land nor wealth, but gave his all for the man whom he thought was his friend.

Yudhishthira : The man who was said to be the embodiment of righteousness. Paid a heavy price for his love of gambling.

Bhima : Immensely strong and brave. He was an Obelix-like character,  incredibly brave in battle, but naive in all else.

Arjuna : The mighty warrior. Destined to make him champion of champions, the most dramatic incidents took place in Arjuna’s life. The Ashvamedha Yajna {horse sacrifice}, the battle with his own son, the kidnapping of Subhadra, the incidents with Ulupi and Citrangada all add to the richness of his character.

Draupadi : An unusual character. Wife to five men, sister to Krishna and one of the most intriguing  characters found in world mythology. Despite having to face all manner of vicissitudes, she emerged a victor.  

Duryodhana : The most intriguing character of all. Enmeshed in a web of his own making, he showed not an iota of remorse. He remained a hard man and the target of all venom. A good example of the corrosiveness of envy and how it can wreak havoc in one’s life.

The battle: An extraordinary war that extended to eighteen devastating days. The plotting, the war itself, and its epic ending are all riveting. One wishes to point out that the purpose of the Mahabharata is not to glorify war, but to make us aware of the seeds of war and its cataclysmic consequences.

Significance of the Mahabharata

Besides its epic narrative of the battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, the Mahabharata contains much philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or purusharthas. The latter are enumerated as dharma {piety}, artha {profit}, kama {pleasure}, and moksha {emancipation}. Among the principal works and stories that are a part of the Mahabharata are the Bhagavadgita, the story of Damayanti, an abbreviated version of the Ramayana, and the Rishyasringa, often considered as works in their own right.

Authorship

Traditionally, the authorship of the Mahabharata is attributed to Vyasa. There have been many attempts to unravel its historical growth and compositional layers. The earliest parts of the text are not appreciably older than around 400 BCE. The text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta period (4th century CE). The title may be translated as "the great tale of the Bhārata dynasty". According to the Mahabharata itself, the tale is extended from a shorter version of 24,000 verses called simply Bhārata.

Comparison with Other Epics

With about one hundred thousand verses, long prose passages, or about 1.8 million words in total, the Mahabharata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined, or about four times the length of the Ramayana. W. J. Johnson has compared the importance of the Mahabharata to world civilization to that of the Bible, the works of Shakespeare, the works of Homer, Greek drama, and the Qur'an.

This Edition

This is the first time that an English translation has been published with the authentic Sanskrit text. The translation by M.N. Dutt is very lucid and accurate according to the Sanskrit mula patha. However, to the original text available to Dutt in Kolkata is now considered to be incomplete in many respects. Hence, this edition uses the original text published the Chitrashala Press, Pune edition which is considered by scholars to be an authentic and complete text of the Mahabharata. And the translation has been reedited and and missing portions have been translated afresh. This clothbound edition, with several line drawings, is as beautiful to behold as it is satisfying to read.

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