Mahabharata

Lore & Background

The Mahābhārata is traditionally ascribed to the sage Vyāsa, who is also a major figure in the epic. The first section states that Ganesha wrote down the text to Vyāsa's dictation, but scholars regard this as a later interpolation not included in the Critical Edition. The epic employs a story-within-a-story structure, first recited at Takshashila by the sage Vaiśampāyana, a disciple of Vyāsa, to King Janamejaya, great-grandson of the Pāṇḍava prince Arjuna. Later, it is recited again by the storyteller Ugrashrava Sauti to an assemblage of sages in the Naimiṣa Forest.

Reader's Guide

The Mahābhārata is one of the longest epic poems known, roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined, and about four times the length of the Rāmāyaṇa. Within the Indian tradition it is sometimes called the fifth Veda. Research has focused on recognizing and dating layers within the text, with the earliest surviving components believed to be no older than the earliest external references, such as a mention in Pāṇini's 4th century BCE grammar. The text was described by some early 20th-century Indologists as unstructured and chaotic, but modern scholarship acknowledges its complex accretion and redaction.

Did You Know?

• The Mahābhārata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined.
• The epic includes the Bhagavad Gita, the story of Damayantī, Śakuntalā, and an abbreviated version of the Rāmāyaṇa.
• The earliest known reference to 'bhārata' and 'mahābhārata' appears in Pāṇini's 4th century BCE grammar Ashtadhyayi.