The Mahabharata is one of India’s two great literary
EPICS; the other is the RAMAYANA (see VALMIKI,
MAHARSHI). It consists of a series of verses originally
composed for oral recitation; most of the
verses are couplets containing 32 syllables. As a
whole, the Mahabharata contains no fewer than
73,000 verses, and some editions contain as many
as 100,000, making it eight times longer than
HOMER’s Iliad and Odyssey combined.
The Mahabharata may be based on actual events
from the eighth or ninth century B.C. It seems to
have come into existence around the fourth century
B.C., the same time as the Ramayana. Numerous
copyists and reciters added to it and modified it
over time until it reached its current form, around
or before A.D. 400. It now contains 18 major books,
each divided into a number of chapters. The text
also breaks down into 100 minor books.
The Mahabharata has exercised an extraordinary
influence over Indian literature and culture.
KALIDASA’s plays drew inspiration from it, as did the
works of many other writers. Painters and sculptors
depicted scenes from it, and a cult grew
around its heroine, Draupadi. In the MIDDLE AGES,
knowledge of the Mahabharata spread as far as
Java and Bali. More recently, Indian comic books
have retold the epic story.
As scholar Bruce Sullivan has noted, the Mahabharata
represents the “desire to conserve and
preserve for everyone the wisdom enunciated by
a dharma-knowing sage.” (Dharma involves the
way things should be and the way one should behave.)
Thus, the epic holds a significant place in
the history of Indian thought. Editor and translator
J. A. B. van Buitenen points out that the Mahabharata
contains a large number of philosophical chapters
that are among the oldest documents for
more or less systematic “Hindu” thought. Likewise,
the history of Indian law cannot be properly
understood without the epic, where the
law is the single greatest concern.
The Mahabharata’s importance is demonstrated by
the fact that the BHAGAVAD GITA, which has become
a key text in Hinduism, is only a small part of the
great epic. In the end, however, the highest praise
for the Mahabharata comes from the epic itself:
Once one has heard this story so worthy of
being heard[,] no other story will please him: it
will sound harsh as the crow sounds to one
after hearing the cuckoo sing. . . . No story is
found on earth that does not rest on this
epic. . . .Whatever is found here may be found
somewhere else, but what is not found here is
found nowhere!
Critical Analysis
The Mahabharata’s plot is complex. In essence, it
tells of a bitter and bloody conflict between two
sets of cousins, the Pandava brothers and the
Dharatarastra brothers. Both wish to rule Kuruksetra,
a kingdom in northern India.
The trouble begins when King Vicitravirya dies
without heirs. His half brother Krsna Dvaipayana,
also called Krsna Vyasa, fathers sons on the king’s
two widows and a maidservant. The first son,
Dhartarastra, is blind. As a result, the second son,
Pandu, becomes king. After Pandu has ruled for
some time, however, he finds it necessary to retire
to the forest. Dhartarastra now rules the kingdom.
Pandu has five sons, while Dhartarastra has 100.
The eldest Pandava, Yudhisthira, was born before
any of his Dharatarastra cousins and therefore
claims the throne. Unfortunately, one of the
Dharatarastras, Duryodhana, wants to become
king himself. He tries to kill Yudhisthira and the
other Pandavas.
After two assassination attempts have failed,
and the Pandavas have acquired allies, Duryodhana
agrees to divide the kingdom with his
cousins. The Pandavas travel to their part of the
kingdom and found a new capital city. Seeing them
prosper, Duryodhana’s jealousy gets the better of
him again. He challenges Yudhisthira to a dice
game during a ritual intended to consecrate the
latter as king. The game is rigged; Yudhisthira loses
his brothers’ freedom, his own freedom, and the
Pandavas’ common wife, Draupadi.He also loses a
rematch. The Pandavas agree to spend 12 years in
exile and live in disguise for a 13th year.
When the 13 years have passed, the Pandavas
and their allies return to the capital to claim the
throne for Yudhisthira. Duryodhana refuses to
yield. A war ensues that lasts for 18 days and takes
in the entire world. Duryodhana and most of the
Dharatarastras perish, as do the Pandavas’ relatives,
allies, and unborn children. The five Pandavas,
however, survive, and Yudhisthira takes the
throne. Years later, his descendant hears this story,
the Mahabharata, recited by a disciple of Krsna
Vyasa.
Krsna Vyasa, the grandfather of the Pandavas
and Dharatarastras, is an important figure in
Hindu tradition. According to legend, he composed
not only the PURANA but also the Mahabharata,
which he dictated to the god Ganesh. He
appears in the Mahabharata as a wise and powerful
man. Ironically, as Sullivan points out, he is also
partly responsible for the bloody war between his
grandchildren. He deliberately made his son
Dharatarastra blind and thus complicated the line
of succession; he supervised the ritual during
which Yudhisthira lost everything in a dice game;
and he failed in his attempts to pacify his grandchildren
and prevent the war.
Yet it seems the war was unavoidable. Indeed,
the inevitability of fate is a theme of the Mahabharata.
Dharatarastra says, “My old age, the destruction
of all my relatives, and the death of my
friends and allies happened because of fate.” Time,
says the Mahabharata, is merciless and inescapable:
[Time] brought the Pandava and [Dharatarastra]
armies together in that place and there destroyed
them. . . . Time ripens the creatures.
Time rots them. . . .Whatever beings there were
in the past will be in the future, whatever are
busy now, they are all the creatures of Time—
know it, and do not lose your sense.
In keeping with its theme of time, the Mahabharata
depicts the war between the Dharatarastras
and Pandavas as the end of one stage of history and
the beginning of another. Characters are described
as incarnations of either gods or demons, battling
each other in human form. Van Buitenen argues
that this mythical imagery is a late addition to the
epic and cheapens its story. Sullivan, in contrast,
believes that “the conflict between the gods and
demons” is a central theme of the epic, just as the
conflict between gods and giants is a central theme
in Norse mythology (see MYTHOLOGY, NORSE).
English Versions of the Mahabharata
Carrière, Jean-Claude. The Mahabharata: A Play
Based Upon the Indian Classic Epic. Translated by
Peter Brook. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.
The Mahabharata. 3 vols.Translated and edited by J. A.
B. van Buitenen. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1973–78.
The Mahabharata. Translated and edited by William
Buck. Berkeley: University of California Press,
2000.
Works about the Mahabharata
Chaitanya, Krishna. The Mahabharata: A Literary
Study. New Delhi: Clarion Books; Flushing, N.Y.:
Asia Book Corp. of America, 1985.
González Reimann, Luis. The Mahabharata and the
Yugas: India’s Great Epic Poem and the Hindu System
ofWorld Ages. New York: Peter Lang, 2002.
Matilal, Bimal Krishna. Moral Dilemmas in the Mahabharata.
Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced
Study, 1989.
Sullivan, Bruce M. Krsna Dvaipayana Vyasa and the
Mahabharata: A New Interpretation. New York:
E.J. Brill, 1990.