Mahabharata
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Manuscript illustration of the Battle of Kurukshetra
The
Mahabharata or
Mahābhārata (
Sanskrit:
महाभारतम्,
Mahābhāratam,
pronounced [məɦaːˈbʱaːrət̪əm]) is one of the two major
Sanskrit epics of
ancient India, the other being the
Ramayana.
[1]
Besides its epic narrative of the
Kurukshetra War and the fates of the
Kaurava and the
Pandava princes, the
Mahabharata contains
philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or
purusharthas (12.161). Among the principal works and stories in the
Mahabharata are the
Bhagavad Gita, the story of
Damayanti, an abbreviated version of the Ramayana, and the
Rishyasringa, often considered as works in their own right.
Traditionally, the authorship of the
Mahabharata is attributed to
Vyasa.
There have been many attempts to unravel its historical growth and
compositional layers. The oldest preserved parts of the text are thought
to be not much older than around 400 BCE, though the origins of the
epic probably fall between the 8th and 9th centuries BCE.
[2] The text probably reached its final form by the early
Gupta period (c. 4th century).
[3] 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.
[4]
The Mahabharata is the longest known epic poem and has been described as "the longest poem ever written".
[5][6] Its longest version consists of over 100,000
shloka
or over 200,000 individual verse lines (each shloka is a couplet), and
long prose passages. About 1.8 million words in total, the Mahabharata
is roughly ten times the length of the
Iliad and the
Odyssey combined, or about four times the length of the Ramayana.
[7][8] 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, or the
Qur'an.
[9]
The other notable version of
Mahabarath is
Andhra mahabharatam, a
Telugu language manuscript written by
Kavitrayam {
Trinity of Poets) in between 11-14th century AD. The Trinity consists of
Nannayya,
Tikkana,
Yerrapragada.
[10]
Textual history and structure
Modern depiction of Vyasa narrating the
Mahabharata to
Ganesha at the
Murudeshwara temple, Karnataka.
The epic is traditionally ascribed to the sage
Vyasa, who is also a major character in the epic. Vyasa described it as being
itihāsa (history). He also describes the Guru-shishya parampara, which traces all great teachers and their students of the Vedic times.
The first section of the
Mahabharata states that it was
Ganesha
who wrote down the text to Vyasa's dictation. Ganesha is said to have
agreed to write it only if Vyasa never paused in his recitation. Vyasa
agrees on condition that Ganesha takes the time to understand what was
said before writing it down.
The epic employs the
story within a story structure, otherwise known as frametales, popular in many Indian religious and non-religious works. It is recited by the sage
Vaisampayana, a disciple of Vyasa, to the King
Janamejaya who is the great-grandson of the
Pandava prince
Arjuna. The story is then recited again by a professional storyteller named
Ugrasrava Sauti, many years later, to an assemblage of sages performing the 12-year sacrifice for the king Saunaka Kulapati in the
Naimisha Forest.
The text has been described by some early 20th-century western
Indologists as unstructured and chaotic.
Hermann Oldenberg
supposed that the original poem must once have carried an immense
"tragic force" but dismissed the full text as a "horrible chaos."
[11] Moritz Winternitz (
Geschichte der indischen Literatur
1909) considered that "only unpoetical theologists and clumsy scribes"
could have lumped the parts of disparate origin into an unordered whole.
[citation needed]
Accretion and redaction
Research on the
Mahabharata has put an enormous effort into recognizing and dating layers within the text. Some elements of the present
Mahabharata can be traced back to Vedic times.
[12] The background to the
Mahabharata suggests the origin of the epic occurs "after the very early
Vedic period"
and before "the first Indian 'empire' was to rise in the third century
B.C." That this is "a date not too far removed from the 8th or 9th
century B.C."
[2][13]
is likely. It is generally agreed that "Unlike the Vedas, which have to
be preserved letter-perfect, the epic was a popular work whose reciters
would inevitably conform to changes in language and style,"
[13]
so the earliest 'surviving' components of this dynamic text are
believed to be no older than the earliest 'external' references we have
to the epic, which may include an allusion in
Panini's 4th century BCE grammar
Ashtādhyāyī 4:2:56.
[2][13] It is estimated that the Sanskrit text probably reached something of a "final form" by the early
Gupta period (about the 4th century CE).
[13] Vishnu Sukthankar, editor of the first great critical edition of the
Mahabharata,
commented: "It is useless to think of reconstructing a fluid text in a
literally original shape, on the basis of an archetype and a
stemma codicum. What then is possible? Our objective can only be to reconstruct
the oldest form of the text which it is possible to reach on the basis of the manuscript material available."
[14] That manuscript evidence is somewhat late, given its material composition and the climate of India, but it is very extensive.
The
Mahabharata itself (1.1.61) distinguishes a core portion of 24,000 verses: the
Bharata proper, as opposed to additional secondary material, while the
Ashvalayana Grhyasutra (3.4.4) makes a similar distinction. At least three redactions of the text are commonly recognized:
Jaya (Victory) with 8,800 verses attributed to
Vyasa,
Bharata with 24,000 verses as recited by
Vaisampayana, and finally the
Mahabharata as recited by
Ugrasrava Sauti with over 100,000 verses.
[15][16] However, some scholars such as John Brockington, argue that
Jaya and
Bharata refer to the same text, and ascribe the theory of
Jaya with 8,800 verses to a misreading of a verse in
Adiparvan (1.1.81).
[17] The
redaction of this large body of text was carried out after formal principles, emphasizing the numbers 18
[18] and 12. The addition of the latest parts may be dated by the absence of the
Anushasana-parva and the
Virata parva from the "Spitzer manuscript".
[19] The oldest surviving Sanskrit text dates to the Kushan Period (200 CE).
[20]
According to what one character says at Mbh. 1.1.50, there were three versions of the epic, beginning with
Manu (1.1.27),
Astika (1.3, sub-parva 5) or
Vasu
(1.57), respectively. These versions would correspond to the addition
of one and then another 'frame' settings of dialogues. The
Vasu version would omit the frame settings and begin with the account of the birth of Vyasa. The
astika version would add the
sarpasattra and
ashvamedha material from Brahmanical literature, introduce the name
Mahabharata, and identify Vyasa as the work's author. The redactors of these additions were probably
Pancharatrin scholars who according to Oberlies (1998) likely retained control over the text until its final redaction. Mention of the
Huna in the
Bhishma-parva however appears to imply that this parva may have been edited around the 4th century
[citation needed].
The snake sacrifice of Janamejaya
The Adi-parva includes the snake sacrifice (
sarpasattra) of
Janamejaya,
explaining its motivation, detailing why all snakes in existence were
intended to be destroyed, and why in spite of this, there are still
snakes in existence. This
sarpasattra material was often considered an independent tale added to a version of the
Mahabharata by "thematic attraction" (Minkowski 1991), and considered to have a particularly close connection to
Vedic (
Brahmana) literature. The
Panchavimsha Brahmana (at 25.15.3) enumerates the officiant priests of a
sarpasattra among whom the names Dhrtarashtra and Janamejaya, two main characters of the
Mahabharata's
sarpasattra, as well as Takshaka, the name of a snake in the
Mahabharata, occur.
[21]
Historical references
The earliest known references to the
Mahabharata and its core
Bharata date to the
Ashtadhyayi (
sutra 6.2.38) of
Pāṇini (
fl. 4th century BCE) and in the
Ashvalayana Grhyasutra (3.4.4). This may suggest that the core 24,000 verses, known as the
Bharata, as well as an early version of the extended
Mahabharata, were composed by the 4th century BCE.
A report by the Greek writer
Dio Chrysostom (c. 40 - c. 120 CE) about
Homer's poetry being sung even in India
[22] seems to imply that the
Iliad had been translated into Sanskrit. However, scholars have, in general, taken this as evidence for the existence of a
Mahabharata at this date, whose episodes Dio or his sources identify with the story of the
Iliad.
[23]
Several stories within the Mahabharata took on separate identities of their own in
Classical Sanskrit literature. For instance,
Abhijñānashākuntala by the renowned Sanskrit poet
Kālidāsa (c. 400 CE), believed to have lived in the era of the
Gupta dynasty, is based on a story that is the precursor to the Mahabharata.
Urubhanga, a Sanskrit play written by
Bhāsa who is believed to have lived before Kālidāsa, is based on the slaying of Duryodhana by the splitting of his thighs by Bhima.
The copper-plate inscription of the
Maharaja Sharvanatha (533–534 CE) from Khoh (
Satna District,
Madhya Pradesh) describes the
Mahabharata as a "collection of 100,000 verses" (
shatasahasri samhita).
The 18 parvas or books
The division into 18 parvas is as follows:
| Parva |
Title |
Sub-parvas |
Contents |
| 1 |
Adi Parva (The Book of the Beginning) |
1–19 |
How the Mahabharata came to be narrated by Sauti to the assembled rishis at Naimisharanya, after having been recited at the sarpasattra of Janamejaya by Vaishampayana at Takṣaśilā. The history and genealogy of the Bharata and Bhrigu races is recalled, as is the birth and early life of the Kuru princes (adi means first). |
| 2 |
Sabha Parva (The Book of the Assembly Hall) |
20–28 |
Maya Danava erects the palace and court (sabha), at Indraprastha. Life at the court, Yudhishthira's Rajasuya Yajna, the game of dice, and the eventual exile of the Pandavas. |
| 3 |
Vana Parva also Aranyaka-parva, Aranya-parva (The Book of the Forest) |
29–44 |
The twelve years of exile in the forest (aranya). |
| 4 |
Virata Parva (The Book of Virata) |
45–48 |
The year spent incognito at the court of Virata. |
| 5 |
Udyoga Parva (The Book of the Effort) |
49–59 |
Preparations for war and efforts to bring about peace between the Kurus and the Pandavas which eventually fail (udyoga means effort or work). |
| 6 |
Bhishma Parva (The Book of Bhishma) |
60–64 |
The first part of the great battle, with Bhishma as commander for the Kauravas and his fall on the bed of arrows. (Includes the Bhagavad Gita in chapters 25[24]-42.[25]) |
| 7 |
Drona Parva (The Book of Drona) |
65–72 |
The battle continues, with Drona as commander. This is the major book of the war. Most of the great warriors on both sides are dead by the end of this book. |
| 8 |
Karna Parva (The Book of Karna) |
73 |
The battle again, with Karna as commander. |
| 9 |
Shalya Parva (The Book of Shalya) |
74–77 |
The last day of the battle, with Shalya
as commander. Also told in detail is the pilgrimage of Balarama to the
fords of the river Saraswati and the mace fight between Bhima and
Duryodhana which ends the war, since Bhima kills Duryodhana by smashing
him on the thighs with a mace. |
| 10 |
Sauptika Parva (The Book of the Sleeping Warriors) |
78–80 |
Ashvattama,
Kripa and Kritavarma kill the remaining Pandava army in their sleep.
Only 7 warriors remain on the Pandava side and 3 on the Kaurava side. |
| 11 |
Stri Parva (The Book of the Women) |
81–85 |
Gandhari, Kunti and the women (stri) of the Kurus and Pandavas lament the dead. |
| 12 |
Shanti Parva (The Book of Peace) |
86–88 |
The crowning of Yudhisthira as king of Hastinapura, and instructions from Bhishma for the newly anointed king on society, economics and politics. This is the longest book of the Mahabharata (shanti means peace). |
| 13 |
Anushasana Parva (The Book of the Instructions) |
89–90 |
The final instructions (anushasana) from Bhishma. |
| 14 |
Ashvamedhika Parva (The Book of the Horse Sacrifice)[26] |
91–92 |
The royal ceremony of the Ashvamedha (Horse sacrifice) conducted by Yudhisthira. The world conquest by Arjuna. The Anugita is told by Krishna to Arjuna. |
| 15 |
Ashramavasika Parva (The Book of the Hermitage) |
93–95 |
The eventual deaths of Dhritarashtra, Gandhari and Kunti in a forest
fire when they are living in a hermitage in the Himalayas. Vidura
predeceases them and Sanjaya on Dhritarashtra's bidding goes to live in
the higher Himalayas. |
| 16 |
Mausala Parva (The Book of the Clubs) |
96 |
The infighting between the Yadavas with maces (mausala) and the eventual destruction of the Yadavas. |
| 17 |
Mahaprasthanika Parva (The Book of the Great Journey) |
97 |
The great journey of Yudhisthira and his brothers across the whole
country and finally their ascent of the great Himalayas where each
Pandava falls except for Yudhisthira. |
| 18 |
Svargarohana Parva (The Book of the Ascent to Heaven) |
98 |
Yudhisthira's final test and the return of the Pandavas to the spiritual world (svarga). |
| khila |
Harivamsa Parva (The Book of the Genealogy of Hari) |
99–100 |
This is an addendum to the 18 books, and covers those parts of the life of Krishna which is not covered in the 18 parvas of the Mahabharata. |
Historical context
The historicity of the
Kurukshetra War is unclear. Many historians estimate the date of the Kurukshetra war to
Iron Age India of the
10th century BCE.
[27] The setting of the epic has a historical precedent in Iron Age (
Vedic) India, where the
Kuru kingdom was the center of political power during roughly 1200 to 800 BCE.
[28] A dynastic conflict of the period could have been the inspiration for the
Jaya,
the foundation on which the Mahabharata corpus was built, with a
climactic battle eventually coming to be viewed as an epochal event.
Puranic literature
presents genealogical lists associated with the Mahabharata narrative.
The evidence of the Puranas is of two kinds. Of the first kind, there is
the direct statement that there were 1015 (or 1050) years between the
birth of Parikshit (Arjuna's grandson) and the accession of Mahapadma
Nanda, commonly dated to 382 BCE, which would yield an estimate of about
1400 BCE for the Bharata battle.
[29] However, this would imply improbably long reigns on average for the kings listed in the genealogies.
[30]
Of the second kind are analyses of parallel genealogies in the Puranas
between the times of Adhisimakrishna (Parikshit's great-grandson) and
Mahapadma Nanda. Pargiter accordingly estimated 26 generations by
averaging 10 different dynastic lists and, assuming 18 years for the
average duration of a reign, arrived at an estimate of 850 BCE for
Adhisimakrishna, and thus approximately 950 BCE for the Bharata battle.
[31]
B. B. Lal
used the same approach with a more conservative assumption of the
average reign to estimate a date of 836 BCE, and correlated this with
archaeological evidence from
Painted Grey Ware sites, the association being strong between PGW artifacts and places mentioned in the epic.
[32]
Attempts to date the events using methods of
archaeoastronomy
have produced, depending on which passages are chosen and how they are
interpreted, estimates ranging from the late 4th to the mid-2nd
millennium BCE.
[33] The late 4th millennium date has a precedent in the calculation of the Kaliyuga epoch, based on planetary conjunctions, by
Aryabhata (6th century). His date of February 18 3102 BCE has become widespread in Indian tradition (for example, the
Aihole inscription of
Pulikeshi II, dated to Saka 556 = 634 CE, claims that 3735 years have elapsed since the Bharata battle.
[34]) Another traditional school of astronomers and historians, represented by
Vriddha-Garga,
Varahamihira (author of the
Brhatsamhita) and
Kalhana (author of the
Rajatarangini), place the Bharata war 653 years after the Kaliyuga epoch, corresponding to 2449 BCE.
[35]
Synopsis
Ganesha writing the Mahabharata
The core story of the work is that of a dynastic struggle for the throne of
Hastinapura, the kingdom ruled by the
Kuru clan. The two collateral branches of the family that participate in the struggle are the
Kaurava and the
Pandava. Although the Kaurava is the senior branch of the family,
Duryodhana, the eldest Kaurava, is younger than
Yudhisthira, the eldest Pandava. Both Duryodhana and Yudhisthira claim to be first in line to inherit the throne.
The struggle culminates in the
great battle of Kurukshetra, in which the
Pandavas
are ultimately victorious. The battle produces complex conflicts of
kinship and friendship, instances of family loyalty and duty taking
precedence over what is right, as well as the converse.
The
Mahabharata itself ends with the death of
Krishna,
and the subsequent end of his dynasty and ascent of the Pandava
brothers to heaven. It also marks the beginning of the Hindu age of
Kali Yuga,
the fourth and final age of mankind, in which great values and noble
ideas have crumbled, and man is heading towards the complete dissolution
of right action, morality and virtue.
The older generations
King Janamejaya's ancestor
Shantanu, the king of
Hastinapura, has a short-lived marriage with the goddess
Ganga and has a son, Devavrata (later to be called
Bhishma, a great warrior), who becomes the heir apparent. Many years later, when King Shantanu goes hunting, he sees
Satyavati,
the daughter of the chief of fisherman, and asks her father for her
hand. Her father refuses to consent to the marriage unless Shantanu
promises to make any future son of Satyavati the king upon his death. To
resolve his father's dilemma, Devavrata agrees to relinquish his right
to the throne. As the fisherman is not sure about the prince's children
honouring the promise, Devavrata also takes a vow of lifelong celibacy
to guarantee his father's promise.
Shantanu has two sons by Satyavati,
Chitrāngada and
Vichitravirya.
Upon Shantanu's death, Chitrangada becomes king. He lives a very short
uneventful life and dies. Vichitravirya, the younger son, rules
Hastinapura. Meanwhile, the King of
Kāśī arranges a
swayamvara
for his three daughters, neglecting to invite the royal family of
Hastinapur. In order to arrange the marriage of young Vichitravirya,
Bhishma attends the swayamvara of the three princesses Amba, Ambika and
Ambalika, uninvited, and proceeds to abduct them. Ambika and Ambalika
consent to be married to Vichitravirya.
The oldest princess Amba, however, informs Bhishma that she wishes to
marry king of Shalva whom Bhishma defeated at their swayamvara. Bhishma
lets her leave to marry king of Shalva, but Shalva refuses to marry
her, still smarting at his humiliation at the hands of Bhishma. Amba
then returns to marry Bhishma but he refuses due to his vow of celibacy.
Amba becomes enraged and becomes Bhishma's bitter enemy, holding him
responsible for her plight. Later she is reborn to King
Drupada as
Shikhandi (or Shikhandini) and causes Bhishma's fall, with the help of
Arjuna, in the battle of Kurukshetra.
The Pandava and Kaurava princes
When Vichitravirya dies young without any heirs, Satyavati asks her first son
Vyasa to
father children with the widows. The eldest, Ambika, shuts her eyes when she sees him, and so her son
Dhritarashtra is born blind. Ambalika turns pale and bloodless upon seeing him, and thus her son
Pandu is born pale and unhealthy (the term Pandu may also mean 'jaundiced'
[36]).
Due to the physical challenges of the first two children, Satyavati
asks Vyasa to try once again. However, Ambika and Ambalika send their
maid instead, to Vyasa's room. Vyasa fathers a third son,
Vidura, by the maid. He is born healthy and grows up to be one of the wisest characters in the
Mahabharata. He serves as Prime Minister (Mahamantri or Mahatma) to King Pandu and King Dhritarashtra.
When the princes grow up, Dhritarashtra is about to be crowned king
by Bhishma when Vidura intervenes and uses his knowledge of politics to
assert that a blind person cannot be king. This is because a blind man
cannot control and protect his subjects. The throne is then given to
Pandu because of Dhritarashtra's blindness. Pandu marries twice, to
Kunti and
Madri. Dhritarashtra marries
Gandhari, a princess from Gandhara, who blindfolds herself so that she may feel the pain that her husband feels. Her brother
Shakuni
is enraged by this and vows to take revenge on the Kuru family. One
day, when Pandu is relaxing in the forest, he hears the sound of a wild
animal. He shoots an arrow in the direction of the sound. However the
arrow hits the sage
Kindama,
who curses him that if he engages in a sexual act, he will die. Pandu
then retires to the forest along with his two wives, and his brother
Dhritarashtra rules thereafter, despite his blindness.
Pandu's older queen Kunti, however, had been given a boon by Sage
Durvasa that she could invoke any god using a special mantra. Kunti uses
this boon to ask
Dharma the god of justice,
Vayu the god of the wind, and
Indra the lord of the heavens for sons. She gives birth to three sons,
Yudhisthira,
Bhima, and
Arjuna, through these gods. Kunti shares her mantra with the younger queen
Madri, who bears the twins
Nakula and
Sahadeva through the
Ashwini twins. However, Pandu and Madri indulge in sex, and Pandu dies. Madri
dies on his funeral pyre out of remorse. Kunti raises the five brothers, who are from then on usually referred to as the
Pandava brothers.
Dhritarashtra has a hundred sons through
Gandhari, all born after the birth of Yudhishtira. These are the
Kaurava brothers, the eldest being
Duryodhana, and the second
Dushasana.
Other Kaurava brothers were Vikarna and Sukarna. The rivalry and enmity
between them and the Pandava brothers, from their youth and into
manhood, leads to the
Kurukshetra war.
Lakshagraha (The House of Lac)
After the deaths of their mother (Madri) and father (Pandu), the
Pandavas and their mother Kunti return to the palace of Hastinapur.
Yudhisthira is made Crown Prince by Dhritarashtra, under considerable
pressure from his kingdom. Dhritarashtra wanted his own son Duryodhana
to become king and lets his ambition get in the way of preserving
justice.
Shakuni, Duryodhana and Dusasana plot to get rid of the Pandavas.
Shakuni calls the architect Purochana to build a palace out of flammable
materials like lac and ghee. He then arranges for the Pandavas and the
Queen Mother Kunti to stay there, with the intention of setting it
alight. However, the Pandavas are warned by their wise uncle,
Vidura,
who sends them a miner to dig a tunnel. They are able to escape to
safety and go into hiding. Back at Hastinapur, the Pandavas and Kunti
are presumed dead.
[37]
Marriage to Draupadi
Whilst they were in hiding the Pandavas learn of a
swayamvara which is taking place for the hand of the
Pāñcāla princess
Draupadī.
The Pandavas enter the competition in disguise as Brahmins. The task is
to string a mighty steel bow and shoot a target on the ceiling, which
is the eye of a moving artificial fish, while looking at its reflection
in oil below. Most of the princes fail, many being unable to lift the
bow. Arjuna succeeds however. The Pandavas return home and inform their
mother that Arjuna has won a competition and to look at what they have
brought back. Without looking, Kunti asks them to share whatever it is
Arjuna has won among themselves. On explaining the previous life of
Draupadi, she ends up being the
wife of all five brothers.
Indraprastha
After the wedding, the Pandava brothers are invited back to
Hastinapura. The Kuru family elders and relatives negotiate and broker a
split of the kingdom, with the Pandavas obtaining a new territory.
Yudhishtira has a new capital built for this territory at
Indraprastha. Neither the Pandava nor Kaurava sides are happy with the arrangement however.
Shortly after this, Arjuna elopes with and then marries Krishna's sister,
Subhadra.
Yudhishtira wishes to establish his position as king; he seeks
Krishna's advice. Krishna advises him, and after due preparation and the
elimination of some opposition, Yudhishthira carries out the
rājasūya yagna ceremony; he is thus recognised as pre-eminent among kings.
The Pandavas have a new palace built for them, by
Maya the
Danava.
[38]
They invite their Kaurava cousins to Indraprastha. Duryodhana walks
round the palace, and mistakes a glossy floor for water, and will not
step in. After being told of his error, he then sees a pond, and assumes
it is not water and falls in.
Draupadi laughs at him and ridicules him by saying that this is because of his blind father
Dhritrashtra. He then decides to avenge his humiliation.
The dice game
Shakuni, Duryodhana's uncle, now arranges a dice game, playing
against Yudhishtira with loaded dice. Yudhishtira loses all his wealth,
then his kingdom. He then even gambles his brothers, himself, and
finally his wife into servitude. The jubilant Kauravas insult the
Pandavas in their helpless state and even try to disrobe Draupadi in
front of the entire court, but her honour is saved by Krishna who
miraculously creates lengths of cloth to replace the ones being removed.
Dhritarashtra, Bhishma, and the other elders are aghast at the
situation, but Duryodhana is adamant that there is no place for two
crown princes in Hastinapura. Against his wishes Dhritarashtra orders
for another dice game. The Pandavas are required to go into exile for 12
years, and in the 13th year must remain hidden. If discovered by the
Kauravas, they will be forced into exile for another 12 years.
Exile and return
The Pandavas spend thirteen years in exile; many adventures occur
during this time. They also prepare alliances for a possible future
conflict. They spend their final year in disguise in the court of
Virata, and are discovered just after the end of the year.
At the end of their exile, they try to negotiate a return to
Indraprastha. However, this fails, as Duryodhana objects that they were
discovered while in hiding, and that no return of their kingdom was
agreed. War becomes inevitable.
The battle at Kurukshetra
A scene from the Mahabharata war,
Angkor Wat:
A black stone relief depicting a number of men wearing a crown and a
dhoti, fighting with spears, swords and bows. A chariot with half the
horse out of the frame is seen in the middle.
The two sides summon vast armies to their help and line up at
Kurukshetra for a war. The kingdoms of
Panchala,
Dwaraka,
Kasi,
Kekaya,
Magadha,
Matsya,
Chedi,
Pandya,
Telinga, and the
Yadus of
Mathura and some other clans like the
Parama Kambojas were allied with the
Pandavas. The allies of the
Kauravas included the kings of Pragjyotisha,
Anga, Kekaya, Sindhudesa (including
Sindhus,
Sauviras and Sivis), Mahishmati,
Avanti in Madhyadesa,
Madra,
Gandhara,
Bahlikas,
Kambojas and many others. Before war being declared,
Balarama had expressed his unhappiness at the developing conflict and left to go on
pilgrimage; thus he does not take part in the battle itself. Krishna takes part in a non-combatant role, as charioteer for Arjuna.
Before the battle, Arjuna, seeing himself facing his great grandfather
Bhishma and his teacher
Drona
on the other side, has doubts about the battle and he fails to lift his
Gāndeeva bow. Krishna wakes him up to his call of duty in the famous
Bhagavad Gita section of the epic.
Though initially sticking to chivalrous notions of warfare, both
sides soon adopt dishonourable tactics. At the end of the 18-day battle,
only the Pandavas,
Satyaki,
Kripa,
Ashwatthama,
Kritavarma,
Yuyutsu and Krishna survive.
The end of the Pandavas
Gandhari, blindfolded, supporting Dhrtarashtra and following Kunti when
Dhrtarashtra became old and infirm and retired to the forest. A
miniature painting from a 16th-century manuscript of part of the
Razmnama,
Persian translation of the Mahabharata
After "seeing" the carnage,
Gandhari
who had lost all her sons, curses Krishna to be a witness to a similar
annihilation of his family, for though divine and capable of stopping
the war, he had not done so. Krishna accepts the curse, which bears
fruit 36 years later.
The Pandavas who had ruled their kingdom meanwhile, decide to renounce everything. Clad in skins and rags they retire to the
Himalaya
and climb towards heaven in their bodily form. A stray dog travels with
them. One by one the brothers and Draupadi fall on their way. As each
one stumbles, Yudhisthira gives the rest the reason for their fall
(Draupadi was partial to Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva were vain and proud
of their looks, Bhima and Arjuna were proud of their strength and
archery skills, respectively). Only the virtuous Yudhisthira, who had
tried everything to prevent the carnage, and the dog remain. The dog
reveals himself to be the god Yama (also known as Yama Dharmaraja), and
then takes him to the underworld where he sees his siblings and wife.
After explaining the nature of the test, Yama takes Yudhishthira back to
heaven and explains that it was necessary to expose him to the
underworld because (Rajyante narakam dhruvam) any ruler has to visit the
underworld at least once. Yama then assures him that his siblings and
wife would join him in heaven after they had been exposed to the
underworld for measures of time according to their vices.
Arjuna's grandson
Parikshit rules after them and dies bitten by a snake. His furious son, Janamejaya, decides to perform a snake sacrifice (
sarpasattra) in order to destroy the snakes. It is at this sacrifice that the tale of his ancestors is narrated to him.
Themes
Just War
The Mahabharata offers one of the first instances of theorizing about "
Just war",
illustrating many of the standards that would be debated later across
the world. In the story, one of five brothers asks if the suffering
caused by war can ever be justified. A long discussion ensues between
the siblings, establishing criteria like
proportionality (chariots cannot attack cavalry, only other chariots, no attacking people in distress),
just means (no poisoned or barbed arrows),
just cause (no attacking out of rage), and fair treatment of captives and the wounded.
[39]
Versions, translations, and derivative works
Telugu Version
There is a [Telugu Language|Telugu]] version of composition called
Andhra mahabharatam written by
Kavitrayam (
Trinity of Poets) consisting of
Nannayya,
Tikkana,
Yerrapragada in between 11-14th century. The story of
Andhra mahabharatam became an integral part of
Telugu people from
Andhrapradesh and numerous Telugu proverbs are based on it . The ithihasa and ideas of Political science are discussed by
Nannayya in his first third of book.
Tikkana Somayaji, the successor of Nannaya is more explicit in his claim for the authority of Veda to the Mahabharata.
[clarification needed]
Errana started the remaining part with the style of Nannaya and ended
it with the style of Tikkana as a bridge between the parts translated by
Nannaya and Tikkana.
[citation needed]
Many regional versions of the work developed over time, mostly
differing only in minor details, or with verses or subsidiary stories
being added. These include some versions from outside the Indian
subcontinent, such as the
Kakawin Bharatayuddha from
Java. The plays of the
Tamil street theatre,
terukkuttu and
kattaikkuttu, use themes from the Tamil language versions of Mahabharata, focusing on Draupadi.
[40]
Critical Edition
Between 1919 and 1966, scholars at the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute,
Pune, compared the various manuscripts of the epic from India and abroad and produced the
Critical Edition of the
Mahabharata,
on 13,000 pages in 19 volumes, followed by the Harivamsha in another
two volumes and six index volumes. This is the text that is usually used
in current
Mahabharata studies for reference.
[41] This work is sometimes called the 'Pune' or 'Poona' edition of the Mahabharata.
Modern interpretations
Krishna as portrayed in
Yakshagana from
Karnataka which is based largely on stories of Mahabharata
In
Indian cinema, several film versions of the epic exist, dating back to 1920.
[42] The internationally acclaimed
parallel Bengali film director
Satyajit Ray also intended to direct a theatrical adaptation of the epic, but the project was never realized.
[43]
In
Telugu many movies made on
Mahabarath which had shown detailed story. But in different the film
Daana Veera Soora Karna (1977) directed and acted by
N. T. Rama Rao shows Karna a lead character and described his good qualities.
[44]
In the late 1980s, the
Mahabharat TV series, directed by Ravi Chopra,
[45] was televised and shown on India's national television (
Doordarshan). In the
Western world, a well-known presentation of the epic is
Peter Brook's nine-hour play, which premiered in
Avignon in 1985, and its five-hour movie version
The Mahabharata (1989).
[46]
Mahabharata was also reinterpreted by
Shyam Benegal in
Kalyug. Kalyug is a modern-day replaying of the Mahabharata.
[47] Prakash Jha directed 2010 film
Raajneeti was partially inspired by Mahabharata.
[48]
Adaptations of the Mahabarata are often the most expensive films in
Indian cinema. The unmade 2004 adaptation Mahabarat by director
Rajkumar Santoshi was estimated at 22 million U.S. dollars
[49] A 2013 animated adaptation holds the record for India's most expensive animated film.
[50]
Amar Chitra Katha published a 1,260 page
comic book version of the Mahabharata.
[51]
Persian translation
Bhishma on his death-bed of arrows with the
Pandavas and
Krishna. Folio from the
Razmnama (1761–1763), Persian translation of the Mahabharata, commissioned by Mughal emperor
Akbar. The Pandavas are dressed in Persian armour and robes.
[52]
It was translated into
Persian at Akbar's orders, by
Faizi and
`Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni (1761–1763) and named
Razmnameh.
[53]
English translations
The first complete English translation was the
Victorian prose version by
Kisari Mohan Ganguli,
[54] published between 1883 and 1896 (Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers) and by M. N. Dutt (
Motilal Banarsidass
Publishers). Most critics consider the translation by Ganguli to be
faithful to the original text. The complete text of Ganguli's
translation is in the
public domain and is available online.
[55] It was originally printed under the name of the publisher, Pratap Chandra Roy.
[56][57]
Another English prose translation of the full epic, based on the
Critical Edition, is also in progress, published by
University Of Chicago Press, initiated by Chicago
Indologist J. A. B. van Buitenen (books 1–5) and, following a 20-year hiatus caused by the death of van Buitenen, is being continued by D. Gitomer of
DePaul University (book 6), J. L. Fitzgerald of Brown University (books 11–13) and
Wendy Doniger of the University of Chicago (books 14–18).
An early poetry translation by
Romesh Chunder Dutt and published in 1898 condenses the main themes of the Mahabharata into English verse.
[58] A later poetic "transcreation" (author's own description) of the full epic into English, done by the poet
P. Lal is complete, and in 2005 began being published by
Writers Workshop,
Calcutta. The P. Lal translation is a non-rhyming verse-by-verse
rendering, and is the only edition in any language to include all slokas
in all recensions of the work (not just those in the
Critical Edition). The completion of the publishing project is scheduled for 2010. Sixteen of the eighteen volumes are now available.
A project to translate the full epic into English prose, translated by various hands, began to appear in 2005 from the
Clay Sanskrit Library, published by
New York University Press. The translation is based not on the
Critical Edition but on the version known to the commentator
Nīlakaṇṭha. Currently available are 15 volumes of the projected 32-volume edition.
Indian economist
Bibek Debroy has also begun an unabridged English translation in ten volumes.
Volume 1: Adi Parva was published in March 2010.
Abridged versions
Many condensed versions, abridgements and novelistic prose retellings
of the complete epic have been published in English, including works by
Ramesh Menon,
William Buck,
R.K. Narayan,
C. Rajagopalachari,
K. M. Munshi,
Krishna Dharma,
Romesh C. Dutt, Bharadvaja Sarma,
John D. Smith and
Sharon Maas.
A Kawi version is found on the Indonesian island of Bali and was translated by Dr.
I. Gusti Putu Phalgunadi. Of the eighteen parvas, only eight Kawi manuscripts remain.
Derivative works
Bhasa, the 2nd- or 3rd-century CE Sanskrit playwright, wrote two plays on episodes in the Marabharata,
Urubhanga (Broken Thigh), about the fight between
Duryodhana and
Bhima, while
Madhyamavyayoga (The Middle One) set around Bhima and his son,
Ghatotkacha. The first important play of 20th century was
Andha Yug (The Blind Epoch), by
Dharamvir Bharati, which came in 1955, found in
Mahabharat, both an ideal source and expression of modern predicaments and discontent. Starting with
Ebrahim Alkazi it was staged by numerous directors.
V. S. Khandekar's Marathi novel,
Yayati (1960) and
Girish Karnad's debut play
Yayati (1961) are based on the story of King
Yayati found in the Mahabharat.
[59] Bengali writer and playwright,
Buddhadeva Bose wrote three plays set in Mahabharat,
Anamni Angana,
Pratham Partha and
Kalsandhya.
[60] Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni wrote a version from the perspective of
Draupadi entitled
The Palace of Illusions: A Novel, which was published in 2008.
Jain version
Depiction of wedding procession of Lord Neminatha. The enclosure shows
the animals that are to be slaughtered for food for weddings. Overcome
with Compassion for animals, Neminatha refused to marry and renounced
his kingdom to become a Shramana
Jain version of Mahabharata can be found in the various
Jain texts like
Harivamsapurana (the story of Harivamsa)
Trisastisalakapurusa Caritra (Hagiography of 63 Illustrious persons),
Pandavacaritra (lives of Pandavas) and
Pandavapurana (stories of Pandavas).
[61] From the earlier canonical literature,
Antakrddaaśāh (8th cannon) and
Vrisnidasa (
upangagama or secondary canon) contain the stories of
Neminatha (22nd
Tirthankara), Krishna and Balarama.
[62] Prof.
Padmanabh Jaini
notes that, unlike in the Hindu Puranas, the names Baladeva and
Vasudeva are not restricted to Balarama and Krishna in Jain puranas.
Instead they serve as names of two distinct class of mighty brothers,
who appear nine times in each half of time cycles of the
Jain cosmology and rule the half the earth as half-chakravartins. Jaini traces the origin of this list of brothers to the Jinacharitra by
Bhadrabahu swami (4th–3rd century BCE).
[63] According to
Jain cosmology Balarama, Krishna and Jarasandha are the ninth and the last set of Baladeva, Vasudeva, and Partivasudeva.
[64]
The main battle is not the Mahabharata, but the fight between Krishna
and Jarasandha who is killed by Krishna. Ultimately, the Pandavas and
Balarama take renunciation as
Jain monks and are reborn in heavens, while on the other hand Krishna and Jarasandha are reborn in hell.
[65] In keeping with the
law of karma,
Krishna is reborn in hell for his exploits (sexual and violent) while
Jarasandha for his evil ways. Prof. Jaini admits a possibility that
perhaps because of his popularity, the Jain authors were keen to
rehabilitate Krishna. The Jain texts predict that after his karmic term
in hell is over sometime during the next half time-cycle, Krishna will
be reborn as a Jain Tirthankara and attain
liberation.
[64] Krishna and Balrama are shown as contemporaries and cousins of 22nd Tirthankara, Neminatha.
[66]
According to this story, Krishna arranged young Neminath’s marriage
with Rajamati, the daughter of Ugrasena, but Neminatha, empathizing with
the animals which were to be slaughtered for the marriage feast, left
the procession suddenly and renounced the world.
[67]
Kuru family tree
This shows the line of royal and family succession, not necessarily the parentage. See the notes below for detail.
Key to Symbols
Notes
The birth order of siblings is correctly shown in the family tree (from left to right), except for
Vyasa and
Bhishma whose birth order is not described, and Vichitravirya who was born after them. The fact that
Ambika and
Ambalika
are sisters is not shown in the family tree. The birth of Duryodhana
took place after the birth of Karna, Yudhishtira and Bhima, but before
the birth of the remaining Pandava brothers.
Some siblings of the characters shown here have been left out for clarity; these include
Chitrāngada, the eldest brother of Vichitravirya.
Vidura, half-brother to Dhritarashtra and Pandu.
Cultural influence
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna explains to Arjuna his duties as a warrior and prince and elaborates on different
Yogic[68] and
Vedantic philosophies, with examples and analogies. This has led to the Gita often being described as a concise guide to
Hindu philosophy and a practical, self-contained guide to life.
[69] In more modern times,
Swami Vivekananda,
Bal Gangadhar Tilak,
Mahatma Gandhi and many others used the text to help inspire the
Indian independence movement
