The Mahabharata

Attributed to: Vyasa
Written: unknown
Retold by: Ramesh Menon
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc (2006)
Bought from: Book Depository


Introduction

This is one of the two major Sanskrit epics from ancient India, the other being The Ramayana. The events in The Mahabharata take place after the events in The Ramayana.

Mahabharata is made up of two words, maha which means great and Bharata which is the Sanskrit name of India. Traditionally, The Mahabharata is attributed to Vyasa, who flits in and out of the story itself as the grandfather of the warring Pandava and Kaurava families. There is no clear evidence who actually compiled the story from its likely oral origins or when. The story may have originated around 900 BC or 800 BC and evolved to more or less its current form around 400 BC. The historicity of the Kurukshetra War fought at the climax of the story is unclear. The traditional date for the war is 1300 BC but most historians date it between the 1000-900 BC.

The poem is made up of almost 100,000 couplets—about seven times the length of The Iliad and The Odyssey combined—divided into 18 parvas, or sections plus a supplement on the genealogy of the god Vishnu. According to The Encyclopedia Britannica, the core story makes up only about one fifth of the work. Around the core story runs a rich vein of materials on Hindu mythology and religious beliefs that expands and informs the core story itself. These include the famous Bhagavad Gita.

The Mahabharata itself declares that “What is found in this story may be found elsewhere; what is not in this story is nowhere else.”


What is it about?

The Mahabharata chronicles the struggle for the throne at Hastinapura between two branches of the House of Kuru, the Pandavas and the Kauravas. This struggle culminates in the epic Kurukshetra War. Seven armies join the Pandavas. Eleven support the Kauravas. The war lasts for 18 days. At the end of the war, more than 10 million kshatriyas lie dead. Most of the noble houses are extinguished. The race of kings has been destroyed forever.

The central character is arguably not any of the Kuru princes but Krishna, the avatara (incarnation) of the Hindu god Vishnu. He is born on the same night as Arjuna. That night, the Hindu god Indra announces to Arjuna’s father Pandu (1.20): “Tonight, Vishnu’s twin incarnations, Nara and Narayana, have been born into the world to cleanse it of evil. Arjuna is Nara, come again as a man. In Mathura tonight, Narayana has also been born. Hearken to the earth, Pandu, she sings the birth of dark Krishna.” Krishna is born to close out the dwapara yuga and usher in the kali yuga (the third and fourth ages respectively of Hindu time). The Kurukshetra War is Krishna’s means to effect the change. The characters in The Mahabharata appear to be mere puppets manipulated by Krishna to achieve his purpose in life.

The main protagonists are the Pandava princes Yudhishtira, Bheema, Arjuna and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva. Arjuna is the lead character in terms of heroics. Krishna is the main ally of the Pandavas.

The primary antagonist is Duryodhana, the oldest of the 100 Kauravas. His main allies are his brother Dusasana and his uncle Shakuni. One character who may also be considered an antagonist is Bheeshma, the last of the royal Kuru bloodline. He is affectionately known to the Kuru princes as pitama (grandfather). He believes the Pandavas are on the side of dharma but duty binds him to be the first senapati (general) of the Kaurava army during the Kurukshetra War. His death, on the “bed of arrows” is one of the most famous episodes of the epic (6.21 ff). Another antagonist is Drona, acharya (brahmana master) to the Kuru princes. His favourite sishya (disciple) is Arjuna. He loves so Arjuna so much that he cold heartedly maims Ekalavya, an upstart who threatens to be a better archer than Arjuna (1.31). But like Bheeshma, duty binds him to fight for the Kaurava army and he serves as senapati after Bheeshma falls.

Then there is Karna, probably the most tragic character in the story. He is actually the oldest Pandava prince and therefore the rightful heir to the throne. But his twisted destiny dictates that he be abandoned by his mother right after he was born (1.16). He finds himself adopted by parents from a caste below his birthright warrior caste. He is rejected by Drona but deceives Drona’s own acharya Bhargava into accepting him as a sishya. He ends up becoming Duryodhana’s closest ally and his brother Arjuna’s mortal enemy. During the Kurukshetra War, Karna bests but spares the lives of all the Pandavas except Arjuna. In the end, he dies in the hands of his brother Arjuna because of a curse laid on him by his old teacher Bhargava.

The main female character is Draupadi. When she is born, an asariri (disembodied voice) says (1.46): “The dark one will be the most beautiful woman in the world. She is born to fulfill a divine purpose, she will be the nemesis of kshatriya kind.” She is the wife to all five Pandava princes. She plays the central role in the episode known as the disrobing of Draupadi (2.19), which triggers the Pandavas’ undying hatred of Duryodhana and his brothers. This antipathy leads to the Kurukshetra War in which the kshatriya kind is decimated.


Themes

The battle between the cousins is one between good v evil, darkness v light, dharma and adharma.

The Pandavas are generally portrayed as the good guys. But even they (often at Krishna’s prompting) are capable of resorting to ignoble actions. During the course of the war, Arjuna kills an unarmed Karna, Yudhishtira (until this moment, a paragon of dharma) tells a white lie to trick Drona into laying down his arms and Bheema disables Duryodhana by striking him literally below the belt. In an earlier episode, the Pandavas committed an even more egregious crime – they left an intoxicated nishada (untouchable) family to die in a fire to mask their own escape (1.40).

The episode with the nishada family is one example of the attitude of the people at that time to the caste system. No one suffers more as a result of the caste system than Karna. Although he is of a kshatriya bloodline, he is adopted by a suta (charioteer). Drona refuses to accept him as a sishya because he thinks Karna is not a kshatriya. Bhargava accepts Karna only after he pretends to be a brahmana. When Bhargava discovers Karna is in fact not a brahmana, he curses Karna, stating that when he requires an astra (supernatural weapon) the most, he will be unable to recall its incantation.

The book also contain major passages dealing with what (in the absence of footnotes) I assume are major teachings of Hinduism. For example, Yudhishtira, who is in exile with his family in exile, asks a muni (sage) why a man who treads the path of dharma suffers while those that are steeped in evil come to no harm. The muni answers:

“It is a time question that many a good man before you has asked in the wilderness and countless more will ask it, in despair, along the deep trails of time. The answer is simple: the evil ones do not prosper but only appear to, at that, very briefly. No man prospers by sin. His own conscience gives him no rest and his crime consumes him from within. Some day, those he has sinned against will recover from the harm he did to them. But the sinner’s guilt remains with him, tormenting him until the hour of retribution comes. There is no escape for the demonic man. Justice overtakes him, inexorably, despite all his efforts to keep it away; then, he is destroyed. But remember, Yudhishtira, life is not simple, neither is it as short as we think. All this began long ago. You have lived many lives before this one, so have your brothers and all of us. What you suffer today might well be punishment for some forgotten crime of your own. Of course, that does not justify what has been done to you, but it might explain it.”
(3.16)

The idea of a cycle, of an individual’s death and rebirth, is a key element of Hindu beliefs. Hindu beliefs also embrace the idea of another cycle, on a grander scale, of the creation and destruction of the cosmos over time. There is a discussion of the four yugas in every great cycle of time according to Hindu belief (3.27). The yuga that ended with the Mahabharata war is the dwapara yuga - the age of kshatriyas and heroes, during which noble values still prevail and men remain faithful to dharma. The age that follows the war is the kali yuga, the last age of every cycle. In this yuga, all values are reduced, law becomes fragmented and powerless, and evil gains sway.

For some readers, the highlight of the book is the Bhagavad Gita, The Song of God. On the eve of the great war, Arjuna is wracked by doubt. He looks across the plains and sees not enemies but sires and grandsire, masters, uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons and childhood friends (6.3). He turns to Krishna, his charioteer. Krishna explains to Arjuna concepts such as samkhya (renunciation), yoga (spiritual discipline) and karma (action). In the original work, the Bhagavad Gita consists of 18 chapters and 700 or 745 verses. In Ramesh Menon’s rendering, the Bhagavad Gita is told in Book 3 Chapters Three to Nine.


What about the book?

This is a modern prose rendering of the ancient epic. Ramesh Menon has used English translations by Kamala Subramaniam and Kisari Mohan Ganguli respectively as his source. It is not clear if he is faithful to the original or not. It is clear that his retelling is an abridged version. The original tale is said to be about 1.8 million words long. So, it would probably have been impractical for a casual reader to read a complete translation. Ramesh Menon, who also retold The Ramayana, has done a decent job. The prose flows smoothly peppered with the occasional flowery language.

The story comes in 2 volumes. In size, they are more like textbooks than anything else. They are bulky and heavy. There are no notes or maps or family trees. There is a skimpy 2-page introduction. There is no table of contents and no index; chapter names or number are not marked on the pages. All these make cross-referencing very difficult. Some notes on the religious passages would have been helpful.


Finally …

The story is recommended. It is truly one of the classics. But the publisher has done a monumentally lousy job.