The Mahabharata, Volume 2: Book 2: The Book of Assembly; Book 3: The Book of the Forest

by J.A.B. Van Buitenen (Translator/Editor)

The Mahabharata, an ancient and vast Sanskrit poem, is a remarkable collection of epics, legends, romances, theology, and ethical and metaphysical doctrine. The core of this great work is the epic struggle between five heroic brothers, the Pandavas, and their one hundred contentious cousins for rule of the land. This is the second volume of van Buitenen's acclaimed translation of the definitive Poona edition of the text. Book two, The Book of the Assembly Hall, is an epic dramatization of the Vedic ritual of consecration that is central to the book. Book three, The Book of the Forest, traces the further episodes of the heroes during their years in exile. Also included are the famous story of Nala, dealing with the theme of love in separation, and the story of Rama, the subject of the other great Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana, as well as other colorful tales.

Genres: India, Religion, Classics, Spirituality, Poetry, Indian Literature

871 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 1981

About the author

Johannes Adrianus Bernardus van Buitenen (1928 - 21 September, 1979) was an Indologist at the University of Chicago where he was the George V. Bobrinskoy Professor of Sanskrit in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations. His interests ranged widely over literature, philosophy and philology but toward the end of his career he focused primarily on the Mahābhārata.

van Buitenen studied with Jan Gonda at the Rijksuniversiteit, Utrecht (since 1990 Universiteit Utrecht). His proefschrift was published in 1953 and he emigrated to America where he took a position at the University of Chicago, remaining there until his death in 1979 at the age of fifty-one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._A._B....

Reviews

[Ramya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Major scholarly effort to translate without interpreting the longest epic poem (written in verse) in the world I.e. ten times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey put together-- The Mahabharatha. However, despite the hard-core attention to referencing and keeping within the scope o the texts -- the reading is tough and dry. You can find intellectual satisfaction only if yo have some prior knowledge and context with which to digest the stories. And, never where the inter-woven complex story within stories to be read by oneself in a single sitting! They were and are meant to be recited and interpreted verbally and visually for the receiver as a gift of knowledge, insight, and ancient history.

[Federico Ruysch · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Mahabharata itself is a grand epic, fully comparable in literary merit to anything in the Western canon. Van Buiten's translation, however, is atrociously bad. It feels like a first year undergrad just opened the dictionary and started translating word by word, picking the first meaning listed in the dictionary entry, without understanding what it was attempting to translate. This is vastly different from a good, literal translation, such as the one in the Clay Sanskrit Library series. The tone and content of the introductions to the various volumes of the series are also peculiarly unscholarly.

[Silvio Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume gets the plot really under way. The Pāṇḍavas conquer the world, but Duryodhana gets them to go into a twelve-year exile in the forest as penalty for losing a game of dice. They go, in obedience to their vow, and wait out twelve years in the forest (which provides the opportunity for another slew of digressions and side stories) but all the time are thinking of getting their kingdom back when the time is up.

[Matthew LaFave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book from cover to cover. In the great Hindu tradition of handing down stories for over 6,000 years, I believe they did a great job with this one. 5 deserved stars. Would like to add that I am eventually going to be beginning volume 1, (The Book of the Beginning), and I so happened to run into the Ramayana of Goswami Tulsidas, the one book considered to be the most important book in the World according to Mahatma Ghandi.

[Ryan Guide · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volume 2: The Plot thickens...