Mahabharat
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The Mahābhārata (Devanagari: महाभारत), is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Rāmāyana. With more than 74,000 verses, plus long prose passages, or some 1.8 million words in total, it is the longest epic poem in the world.
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It is also of immense religious and philosophical importance in India, in particular for including the Bhagavad Gita, an important text of Hinduism.
The title may be translated as "Great Bharath" which means "Great India" in modern terms or "the great tale of the Bharata Dynasty", according to the Mahabharata's own testimony extended from a shorter version simply called Bhārata of 24,000 verses.
The epic is part of the Hindu itihāsas, literally "that which happened", along with the Ramayana and the Purānas.
Traditionally, the Mahabharata is ascribed to Vyasa. Due to its immense length, its philological study has a long history of attempting to unravel its historical growth and composition layers. Although its origins likely lie in the 8th and 9th centuries BC, the oldest parts of the current text are likely to date back to the around the 6th century BC.
Authorship
The epic is traditionally ascribed to Maha Rishi Veda Vyasa, who is one of the major dynastic characters within the epic. The first section of the Mahabharata states that it was Ganesha who, at the behest of Vyasa, fixed the text in manuscript form. Lord Ganesha is said to have agreed, but only on condition that Vyasa never pause in his recitation.
Vyasa then put a counter-condition that Ganesha understand whatever he recited, before writing it down. In this way Vyasa could get some respite from continuously speaking by saying a verse which was difficult to understand. This situation also serves as a popular variation on the stories of how Ganesha's right tusk was broken (a traditional part of Ganesha imagery).
This version attributes it to the fact that, in the rush of writing, the great elephant-headed divinity's pen failed, and he snapped off his tusk as a replacement in order that the transcription not be interrupted.
Textual history and organization
It is undisputed that the full length of the Mahabharata has accreted over a long period. The Mahabharata itself (1.1.61) distinguishes a core portion of 24,000, the Bharata proper, as opposed to additional "secondary" material, and the Ashvalayana Grhyasutra (3.4.4) makes a similar distinction. Not unlike the field of Homeric studies, research on the Mahabharata has put an enormous effort into recognizing and dating various layers within the text. Oldenberg (1922) stipulated that the supposed original poem once carried an immense "tragic force", but dismissed the full text as a "horrible chaos".
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The earliest known references to the Mahabharata date back to the 5th or 6th century BC, in sutra 6.2.38 of the Ashtadhyayi of Pātini (c. 520-460 BC), and in the Ashvalayana Grhyasutra (3.4.4), which both also mention the Bharata.
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Various characters from the epic are also mentioned in earlier Vedic literature. This indicates that the original 24,000 verses, known as the Bharata, as well as various secondary material in the extended Mahabharata version, were complete by the 5th or 6th century BC.
The earliest testimony of the existence of the full text of the Mahabharata is by the Greek Sophist Dion Chrysostom (c. 40-105), who mentions that "the Indians possess an Iliad of 100,000 verses".
The later copper-plate inscription of the Maharaja Sharvanatha (533-534 CE) from Khoh (Satna District, Madhya Pradesh) also describes the Mahabharata as a "collection of 100,000 verses" (shatasahasri samhita). The redaction of this large body of text was carried out after formal principles, emphasizing the numbers 18 and 12.
The addition of the latest parts may be dated by the absence of the Anushasana-parva from MS Spitzer, the oldest surviving Sanskrit philosophical manuscript dated to the first century, that contains among other things a list of the books in the Mahabharata. From this evidence, it is likely that the redaction into 18 books took place in the first century.
An alternative division into 20 parvas appears to have co-existed for some time. The division into 100 sub-parvas (mentioned in Mbh. 1.2.70) is older, and most parvas are named after one of their constituent sub-parvas. The Harivamsha consists of the final two of the 100 sub-parvas, and was considered an appendix (khila) to the Mahabharata proper by the redactors of the 18 parvas.
The division into 18 parvas is as follows:
The Adi-parva is dedicated to the snake sacrifice (sarpasattra) of Jayamejaya, 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 particularly close connection to Vedic (Brahmana literature), in particular the Panchavimsha Brahmana which describes the Sarpasattra as originally performed by snakes, among which are snakes named Dhrtarashtra and Janamejaya, two main characters of the Mahabharata's sarpasattra, and Takshaka, the name of a snake also in the Mahabharata. The Shatapatha Brahmana gives an account of an Ashvamedha performed by Janamejaya Parikshita.
According to 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 probably correspond to the addition of one and then another 'frame' settings of dialogues. The Vasu version corresponds to the oldest, without frame settings, beginning with the account of the birth of Vyasa.
The Astika version adds the Sarpasattra and Ashvamedha material from Brahmanical literature, and introduces the name Mahabharata and identifies 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 in the 3rd or 4th century CE. Mention of the Hunas in the Bhishma-parva appears to imply that the compilation of the text was still ongoing in 400 CE.
Historicity
The historicity of the events of the story is unclear. Many historians believe it to be a work of fiction. The epic's setting certainly has a historical precedent in Vedic India, where the Kuru kingdom was the center of political power in the late 2nd and early 1st millennia BCE.
Ancient Indian scholars have calculated chronologies for the Mahabharata war, comparable to the Hellenistic attempts at a chronology of Greek mythology, the 5th century mathematician Aryabhatta arriving at an approximate date for the Kurukshetra battle of 3100 BCE.[7] Contentious and disputable attempts to date the events of the Mahabharata with the help of archaeoastronomy have claimed dates in the 6th millennium BCE.
According to the Puranas, there is a time gap of 1015 or 1500 years between Parikshit's birth during the Mahabharata war and the coronation of king Mahapadma Nanda (ca. 364-382 BCE).
Synopsis
The epic employs the 'tale-within-tale' structure popular in many Indian religious and secular works. It is recited to the King Janamejaya by Vaishampayana, a disciple of Vyasa.
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 Kauravas, the elder branch of the family, and the Pandavas, the younger branch.
The struggle culminates leading to the Great battle of Kurukshetra, and the Pandavas are ultimately victorious. 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 (Kali Yuga), the fourth and final age of mankind, where the great values and noble ideas have crumbled, and man is speedily heading toward the complete dissolution of right action, morality and virtue.
Some of the most noble and revered figures in the Mahabharata end up fighting on the side of the Kauravas, due to conflicts of their dharma, or duty.
For example, Bhishma had vowed to always protect the king of Hastinapura, whoever he may be. Thus, he was required to fight on the side of evil knowing that his Pandavas would end up victorious only with his death.
Map of "Bharatvarsha" during the time of Mahabharata & Ramayana.
(Title and location names are in English.)