The Mahabharata

Mahabharata #1

by Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Bibek Debroy (Translator)

The Mahabharata is one of the greatest stories ever told. Dispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins-the Kouravas and Pandavas-but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters face them with no clear indications of what is right and what is wrong; there are no absolute answers. Thus every possible human emotion features in the Mahabharata, the reason the epic continues to hold sway over our imagination. In this superb and widely acclaimed translation of the complete Mahabharata. Bibek Debroy takes us on a great journey with incredible ease.

Genres: Mythology, Classics, Religion, Philosophy, India, Hinduism, Poetry

536 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 401

About the author

Krishna Dvaipāyana Vyāsa, also known as Vyāsa or Veda-Vyāsa (वेदव्यास, the one who classified the Vedas into four parts) is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is traditonally regarded as the author of the Mahābhārata, although it is also widely held that he only composed the core of the epic, the Bhārata. A significant portion of the epic later was only added in later centuries, which then came to be known as the Mahābhārata. The date of composition of this epic is not known - It was definitvely part of the traditions in Indian subcontinent at the time Gautam Buddha (~500 BCE) which would suggest it having been already around for atleast a few centuries. It was chiefy put down in the written form only somewhere between 300 BCE to 300 CE.

As the name would suggest, Vyāsa is believed to have categorised the primordial single Veda into its four canonical collections. He is also considered to be the scribe of Purānās, ancient Hindu texts eulogizing various deities, primarily the divine Trimurti God in Hinduism through divine stories.

Reviews

[Vishnu Chevli · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a big time fan of Mahabharata, I wanted to read a "Complete Mahabharata". After long time I found this book and it is indeed a detailed book on Mahabharata. I personally found it "awesome"... Language used in the novel is also pretty rich.

Those who have read novels like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings might have felt that movies for the same are not up to the level of novels. You will feel same for Mahabharata Series after reading this book.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not an easy book to categorise. I can only compare it to the (very few) other foundational epics I've read.

Like the Bible, it is full of different stories, which echo and foreshadow one another. In one digression, for instance, Indra encounters Shiva playing dice on a mountaintop. He rudely interrupts the supreme deity, who first freezes Indra on the spot, and then shows him a pit in the peak of the mountain, where five previous incarnations of Indra have been imprisoned. The story not only parallels the Droupadi plot, during which it is told, but also obviously foreshadows the dice game that will kickstart the war in later volumes. What makes it different to the Bible is that all these digressions are woven into the story of a single family and its dynastic struggles.

Like the Iliad and Odyssey, there is a complex web of characters, superhuman feats of war, and a world of gods and demigods who toy with human history. What makes it different to Homer in this respect is the strange complexity of the universe. Homer's gods all exist on a single plane, and their interactions with the world all follow the same logic: they copulate with humans, talk with humans, fight with humans, watch humans from the sky, and so on. But the gods of Mahabharata form a shifting and complicated pantheon. It is never quite clear what role each deity plays in the structure of the universe. At times, it seems that Indra is omnipotent, at others he can seem a mere bit-player in a universe ruled by Bramha, or comes face-to-face with more mysterious and powerful gods like Shiva and Vishnu. The gods do not seem to have a single identity or being. Indra has his incarnations in the mountain-top, is incarnated in the bodies of the Pandavas, and also seems to exist as himself. This whizzing, whirring universe can be confusing, but the effect is also intoxicating.

Like the Aeneid (or, I would add, Beowulf), a single moral concept forms the central thread of the epic. Pious Aeneas follows a divine command. Beowulf follows the inscrutable logic of wyrd. The heroes of Mahabharata follow dharma. Dharma is not an easy concept to grasp. In story after story, we encounter different explanations of its nature and applications to human affairs. The characters themselves are not sure of its dictates, and debate one another with passion, and often insight. There are aspects of the concept, as presented in the epic, which are clearly repulsive to modern democratic tastes—but even here, the meaning of the text is more complex than it first appears.

In sum, the book's most obvious trait is its copiousness. Its sheer variety is probably best illustrated by its treatment of sex. Most of the characters are ascetics, whose "austerities" give them power. One of the most common austerities is celibacy. And yet this epic of celibates has more references to semen and uteruses than I've ever encountered in my life before. This copiousness or variety has a downside—it's hard to keep track of what is going on sometimes, and there is a lot of throat-clearing in the first 150-200 pages—but once you get into it, it's dazzling.

Mahabharata's greatest strength, however, is the same as that of all great books (says this unrepentant humanist). Despite the strangeness and magic and hyperbole and ancient religious doctrine, it is full of pathos that reaches across the centuries. By way of conclusion, here is the grief of the sage Vashishtha, when he learns that his children are dead:

When Vashishtha learnt that Vishvamitra had conspired to get his sons killed, he bore his grief patiently, like a great mountain bears the earth. That best of sages, chief among those who are intelligent, resolved to sacrifice himself rather than set his mind on extinguishing the Kushika lineage. The illustrious rishi threw himself down from the peak of Mount Meru and his head struck the stones like a bale of cotton. O Pandava! When the illustrious one found that the fall did not kill him, he lit a fire in the great forest and entered it. But though the flames blazed up high, they did not kill him. O chastiser of enemies! Instead, the blazing flames cooled him. Seeing the ocean, the grief-striken and great sage tied a heavy stone around his neck and flung himself into the water. But the strong waves brought the great sage back to the shore. With a sorrowful heart, he then returned to his hermitage.

Only 9 more volumes to go.

[Tanuj Solanki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fact / Fiction

From 2010 to 2014, volumes from Bibek Debroy’s grand project of translating the Mahabharata from the original Sanskrit appeared in the market. A few months ago, I bought the entire box set. Ever since, I’ve been purporting to start my Mahabharata journey. I’ve often taken out a book from the set, turned it in my hands, and been teased by the back cover blurb that calls what is inside ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’.

In his introduction to the first book, Debroy attempts to place the events in the Mahabharata in history. No conclusive timeline – none shorter than a range of a thousand years – appears. There is speculation that the events in the Mahabharata might be from an era before the events in the Ramayana – this is contrary to the commonly held belief that Ram precedes Krishna by an era (Treta Yug comes before Dwapar Yug). Debroy’s guess is based on observations regarding the relatively refined violence in Ramayana which, compared to all the gore in Mahabharata, would suggest itself as a product of a later, more measured civilization. Debroy also notes that if his conjectures about the historicity of the events in Mahabharata were true, it likely followed that the central conflict in the epic was actually all about cattle. That the cousins fought over land might be a plot alteration mandated not by historical truth but by the importance of land in the era that the epic was effectively composed in.

That Mahabharata was composed entirely by Vedvyasa in a single lifetime is also marked as an impossibility. The epic was composed and refined, no doubt, over hundreds of years. A long oral tradition perpetuated it. Authorship is largely irrelevant.

Yet, Vedvyasa’s delightful presence in the plot, that too not as a distant, unrelated observer but as a critical node on the Kuru family tree, and the references to him by the two main narrators of the Mahabharata—Vaishampayana and Lomharshana—suggest that things did begin with him.
Vedvyasa, in fact, is a title. The real name is Krishna Dvaipayana. Krishna Dvaipayana was the child of sage Parashar and Satyavati (Shantanu’s wife), and sired Dhritrashtra and Pandu with the wives of his own step-brother, Vichitravirya, who was Satyavati’s son with Shantanu. Thus, the fathers of Kouravas and Pandavas are in fact children of Krishna Dvaipayana Vedvyasa, the one granted credit for the shlokas of the epic.

Perhaps it would not be outlandish to credit Vedvyasa as the creator, rather than just the biological father, of Dhritrashtra and Pandu. What if the two brothers were Vedvyasa’s fictions, and everything that followed from them was also, therefore, fictional. The offense (to some) of the suggestion notwithstanding, it is no doubt charming to embed oneself in a royal family, father fictional heirs with royal wives, and concoct stories of conflict among one’s own grandchildren.

That’s a fertile imagination if there ever was one.

Nested Narrators

Going by the eighteen parva classification of the Mahabharata, the tale begins with the Adi Parva. However, the 100-parva classification perhaps better suits the length of the epic, and going by that that the Adi Parva itself holds nineteen parvas in it, beginning with the Anukramanika Parva.

The Anukramanika Parva, instead of beginning the story itself, provides a summary of the events in the epic. Clearly, those composing the Mahabharata felt it prudent to provide a gist to remind people of the story they have always known in summary. The end of the section details the benefits of a Mahabharata reading, thereby giving added incentive for carrying on. These benefits are extraordinary hyperbole, with the following sentence structure as a template: ‘if one reads only one line of a shloka, all sins are destroyed.’ The matter of reading the Mahabharata (or the Jaya, or the Bharata, the other names that are also used for the epic) is turned into a redemptive one, and it is no doubt that a little amount of the epic’s perpetuity owes to its status as a near-religious text. Another interesting point to note is that the Anukramanika Parva splits the summarizing in two parts. The first summary is provided in person by Ugrashava, referred to as ‘Souti’ by the sages who demand a narration of the tale from him. The second summary is in the voice of Dhritarashtra. It is an emotional account to Sanjaya (Dhritarashtra’s commentator) after the war is over. Dhritarashtra tells Sanjaya of all the junctures in history when he had sensed that there was no hope of victory for Duryodhana.

It is my claim that through this twin narration, the Anukramanika Parva also readies us for a continuous shift in (or morphing of) the narrator’s identity. Here, Dhritarashtra’s narrative voice is nested inside Ugrashava’s. Through this structure, whose direct relevance is difficult to see, one should probably understand that such nested narrators will abound in the epic too.

One also notices a difference in the two narrative voices. Ugrashrava’s immediate narration is straightforward, as if he were simply summarizing history. His recreation of Dhritarashtra’s narration is poetic and affecting.

The Anukramanika Parva is followed by the Parvasamgraha Parva, in which Ugrashrava provides the two classifications—into hundred and eighteen parvas. It is interesting to note that the classifications of the text are provided inside the text. It follows that Ugrashrava’s own retelling in the Anukramanika and Parvasamgraha parvas was already included in the classification! How is that possible? How could he tell a tale in first person and provide his telling as already-included in a historical classification?

This is a delightful warp, a post-modernish touch. The more tempered view might require us to assume that the text allowed the two opening parvas to be rendered freely by the narrator, and we happen to have only one of many renderings in Ugrashava’s retelling.

The War's Magnitude

Every war is followed by an attempt to quantify the damage brought by it. The audit, so to say, might have more practical purposes, but one of its doubtless outcomes is to nourish that ugly strain in human nature which feeds on a certain fascination with carnage and often stoops to compare catastrophes.

Insofar as literature has been about wars and conflicts, it has played the dirty role of valourizing them, gleefully providing estimates of ‘war losses’ to generate a response of awe in the reader. In fact, it is perversely wise for a poet to over-report war damages, since the intent is to establish their war as superior among all the wars, and, by relation, their work on that war as superior among all similar works.

The Mahabharata, arguably the supreme war epic, also felt the need to assert the fact that it was concerned with a war bigger than any other. To merely allow the reader to believe the magnitude of the carnage would not be enough; it had to be provided in numbers. (Here I’m reminded of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Columbian novelist, who pointed out that literary exaggeration works better when a number is provided. For example, it is not believable when one says ‘elephants were flying in the air’. Yet, as soon as one says, '12 elephants were flying in the air,’ the reader’s disbelief begins to be suspended.)

The war numbers are provided inside in the Parvasamgraha Parva. Bibek Debroy, whose translation is the one that I’m reading, mentions that the parva was most likely a later addition to the original text.

There, the sages ask Ugrashrava about an akshouhini (army), urging him to provide the exact details of the size of one. Ugrashrava answers by moving from the smallest unit composing an akshouhini to the largest, eventually reaching staggering numbers. An akshouhini was apparently composed of 21,870 chariots, 21,870 elephants, 109,350 foot soldiers, and 65,610 horses. And: ‘eighteen akshouhinis of the Kurus and the Pandavas were made up according to these numbers and the cause destroyed them all’!

Ugrashrava’s answer is a direct invitation for the reader to make further calculations regarding the loss of human and animal life in the Mahabharata. And the numbers are mind-numbing for a conflict that concluded inside eighteen days. Assuming that each animal or chariot was manned by at least one person, the annihilation of eighteen akshouhinis leads us to an average death count of 2,18,700 men per day, forgetting the animals. This is beyond credulity, especially if we imagine the war as taking place at a single site. The mere disposal of corpses to clear the ground for battle the next day would require a couple of akshouhinis of its own.

The conclusion: either the war took place everywhere in ancient India, or we have to accept these numbers as exaggerated.

King Janamajeya's Snake Sacrifice

We see that the first two parvas of the Mahabharata provide only a summary of the events, a gesture akin to adding a table of contents before a long book. The third parva is called the Poushya Parva. There, we are in the time of Janamejaya, Arjuna great-grandson, who is now the ruler of Hastinapur. The section is haphazardly told, and often appears aimless. We follow a multitude of characters, all attempting to placate their gurus or preceptors. One puts his own body on the line to plug a dam breach. Another almost starves to death (and also loses his eyesight, which he later recovers) while trying to ensure that all comestibles are offered first to the preceptor. A third one, named Utanka, stays at his preceptor’s house for fulfilling household duties, where he is goaded on to perform the husband’s duties on the preceptor’s wife. ‘You must stand in his place and ensure that her period does not go barren,’ say the household women to Utanka. The passage is one of innumerable junctures where the Mahabharata shall present itself as a text of thoroughly patriarchal times, where women had little agency, especially with regards to sexual matters. Utanka refuses, but is ultimately charged with the duty of getting a queen’s earrings for the preceptors’s wife. On the way, a man on a bull urges him to eat the animal’s dung (bullshit, literally). On his return journey, the earrings are stolen by the naga king Takshaka.

To recover the earrings, Utanka is advised by a man to blow into a horse’s anus (please grant me pardon, but this is how it is). The man is Indra, the horse Agni; pitted against the gods, Takshaka is forced into submission.

Nevertheless, Utanka remains angry at Takshaka, and goes to Janamejaya to inform him of the facts of his father’s death (just why brahmins previously held back this information from Janamejaya isn’t clear). It emerges that Parikshit, Arjuna’s grandson and Janamejaya’s father, was killed by Takshaka.

To avenge his father’s death, Janamejaya announces a massive snake sacrifice - meaning a big fire in which all the snakes (nagas) of the kingdom and beyond are to be thrown in. The sacrifice is a critical event in the Mahabharata, for it is there that the flashback, through which Janamejaya’s ancestors’ stories [basically, stories of the great war] are narrated to him, begins.

The snakes we talk of here are shape-shifters, capable of taking human forms. Snakes had kingdoms and kings then, according to the text. It is, in fact, not beyond imagination that the word ‘snake’ is being used here for an ethnic group, and that Takshaka is a rival leader fighting a guerrilla war against the powers in Hastinapura.

And therefore, Janamajeya’s sacrificial act should perhaps not be seen literally, as simply that of extraordinary cruelty against an animal species. Perhaps it is an act of genocide, fueled by rage. The task of stopping Janamejaya was done by a brahmana named Astika, who for his contribution got a complete parva of the Mahabharata named after him (the fifth parva).

Astika’s intervention is a story of the power of nonviolence, and is quoted even before it transpires in the text. In the Pouloma parva, a series of stories about the Bhrigu lineage ends with the sage named Ruru attempting to kill a non-poisonous snake, who turns out to be an accursed sage itself. The sage tells Ruru how brahmins have prevented violence against harmless beings, and gives the specific example of Astika’s intervention in Janamajeya’s sacrifice. It is probable that this contrivance exists only to point out how violence is the domain of kshatriyas, and that brahmans ought to avoid it. Caste distinctions are, of course, rigidly impressed multiple times in the text.

A notable thing is that even before we reach Astika’s intervention in Janamajeya’s snake sacrifice, the text tries to convince us that the sacrifice was a pre-destined event. This could be read as an attempt to exonerate Janamajeya, to show the sacrifice as ordained by powers greater than his own. In the Astika Parva, Astika’s origination story includes digressions in which a clairvoyant woman curses snakes to be consumed in the impending sacrificial event. [The snakes are actually her sons: once again, human and snake forms interchange]

We see, thus, a non-linear narrative structure in which what precedes and succeeds a given event is presented even before the event. One could say that this heightens tension, and removes all doubts regarding the importance of the event itself.

*

“The source of our danger is destiny” - thus speak the snakes in the Astika parva, the fifth parva of the Mahabharata. They have been cursed and the curse entails that they be completely erased from the face of the earth in the Pandava king Janamajeya’s [Arjun’s great-grandson] snake sacrifice.

Destiny truly is in play here, for the curse comes into force long before the sacrifice itself has been instigated. During this period, Vasuki, the lord of the snakes, learns of a way through which the impact of the curse might be lessened. He is told how a sage named Jaratkaru will sire a son named Astika, who in turn will advise Janamajeya against annihilating the nagas. Vasuki’s role is to help the process by offering his sister to Jaratkaru.

Vasuki’s sister is also named Jaratkaru, which helps because the sage had once announced that he would only marry a woman who had the same name as him [jara means decay and karu means gigantic, so Jaratkaru perhaps thought that he would never get to marry given the uniqueness of his name].

As mentioned earlier, Janamajeya's sacrifice is instigated when helearns that his father, Parikshit, was killed by a naga named Takshaka. The text doesn’t allow us to think of it as a simple murder, though. It turns out that Parikshit’s death, too, was predestined. In fact, he was cursed to be killed by Takshaka, as punishment for putting a dead snake around the neck of a meditating sage.

Despite the ever-imaginative ways in which one incident follows another in the Astika parva, the iffy inevitability of the larger events becomes too much to take. One wonders how an epic with a reputation for posing delightful ambiguities could begin with such rigid causality and predestination. To a modern reader, the fact that the template of a curse is being repeatedly used as a plot device and / or predestination marker is another irritation.

Earlier, I have surmised that the nagas could have been in fact a rival ethnic group. If that were true, the snake sacrifice’s predestination could be seen as a ruse to exculpate Janamajeya from genocide. That even Takshaka’s killing of Parikshit was predestined complicates matters further, for implicit in it is Takshaka’s innocence. It can, however, be argued that this is an even defter touch, for it leaves us at a juncture where neither Janamajeya nor Takshaka have any agency. Only the brahmins, those followers of austerities, have agency, for it is they who hurl curses upon others and thus move the narrative forward. The text would like us to believe that the events were ordained by the brahmins’ curses. The truth could be the opposite. It is plausible that it is, in fact, the curses that were invented, post facto, to make things easier for the egos of those who mattered.

Yayati's Story

In the Sambhava parva of the Mahabharata is provided the incredibly topsy-turvy story of king Yayati, generally understood as a figure whose entire life is an obsession about the sexual function. The story begins as Yayati gets himself entangled in the long-running rivalry between two powerful women - Devayani and Sharmishtha. All this, in case it needs clarification, happens an eon before the great war.

Devayani is the daughter of sage Shukra, the preceptor of the asuras and also of their king Vrishaparva. Sharmishta is Vrishaparva's daughter . The two are friends to begin with. The rift in their friendship is instigated by none other than the king of gods, Indra. One day, when Devayani and Sharmishtha are frolicking naked in a forest. Indra takes the form of wind and mixes up their garments. Since Devayani’s father is Sharmishtha’s father’s preceptor, Devayani has reasons to assume that she is superior to Sharmishtha. She is thus enraged upon seeing Sharmishtha attempt to wear her clothes. She insults Sharmishtha who, daughter of a demon-king as she is, is so chafed by her words that she throws Devayani in a nearby well and walks away.

King Yayati comes to the same well to provide water to his thirsty horse. Seeing Devayani inside, he provides her a hand and pulls her out. Devayani then goes to her father and complains. Politics follows: Shukra threatens Vrishaparva with abandoning him; Vrishaparva, sure that Shukra’s abandonment of the asuras would mean their conclusive defeat before the devas (as the asuras would lose the power to reemerge from death) is committed to pacify the sage; the pacification requires that Sharmishtha accept to be Devayani’s slave and follow her everywhere. Sharmishtha, as a woman who bears the burden of deciding the fate of her entire race, has no choice but to agree.

King Yayati again meets Devayani and Sharmishta in the same forest. This time, Devayani reminds him how he had once touched her, and how that entails that he has to accept her as his wife. Scared by the prospect of an inter-caste marriage, Yayati doesn’t agree at first. Before Shukra, he specifically asks: ‘Let no great sin descend on me as a consequence of my begetting offspring of mixed caste.’ Even the kings, as can be seen here, were terrified of breaking the codes of the caste system.

The marriage between Yayati and Devayani is approved by Shukra. After a few years, the slave Sharmishtha is able to seduce Yayati and gives birth to three sons. On their discovery, Devayani again takes the matter before her father. Yayati’s defence is classic: ‘A man who refuses when a desiring woman privately solicits him, is called a killer of an embryo by the learned.’ Perverted as this thought is, one takes solace in knowing that the ancients at least thought of killing embryos as a crime.

Shukra curses Yayati with immediate old age. Yet allows him the power to transfer this old age to a willing son of his.

[the rest of this review will be posted to a blog soon, and linked from here]

[Garima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mahabharat has been my favourite story since forever. Reading the unabridged version was always a dream but it wasn't until this beautiful translation came by that I finally began this journey.
And as expected, it is surreal. As Debroy perfectly mentions in his introduction, it is like an encyclopaedia of ancient India. Through this first book we travel through the various unknown stories which usually are not told and this is what the makes it even more vivid and lovely.
Being an ardent admirer of Sanskrit language, I specially enjoy the various salutations our ancient scriptures remark. They give it a more personal feeling creating a very real illusion of the story being narrated right in front of us. And the translation beautifully captures everything.
In any case, I am not talented enough to actually review the epic which is undoubtedly the greatest story ever told, all I can say is (with an amateurish undertone) that the translation is just pure and perfect. And I couldn't be thankful enough to Bibek Debroy for bringing this out so beautifully and richly in English.

[Abhinav Agarwal · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unabridged translation of the Mahabharata is a tall order. This book starts strongly; and this is going to be a marathon, with a total of 10 volumes planned.

Bibek Debroy, the translator, is an economist with a difference. How so? Well, consider this. In the early 1980s, while at the Presidency College in Kolkata, the author wrote a paper where he did a "statistical test on the frequency with which the five Pandavas used various weapons in the Kurukshetra war." Yes. Different. While his interest in the Mahabharata "remained, I got sidetracked into translating. Through the 1990s, there were abdridged translations of the Maha Puranas, the Vedas and the eleven major Upanishads."

This then is the first volume of the author's unabridged translation of the Mahabharata. The entire series is expected to run into ten volumes, and so far, at the time of my writing this review, four volumes have been released, with each volume appearing roughly every six months, the most recent one, Vol. 4, published in Nov. 2011. The fifth one, then, can be expected in April 2012. At this pace, the tenth, and last, volume should be published in Nov 2014.

The author has followed the Critical Edition from the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, in Pune, for his translation. There have been only five unabridged translations of the Mahabharata to-date, three of them by Indians, and two that have originated in the United States (one from the University of Chicago, and the other from the Clay Institute - both translations are as yet unfinished). This work is therefore, the sixth such translation.

Complete review on my blog at http://blog.abhinavagarwal.net/2012/0...

[Crokicker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I consider it a blessing that I was able to finish the Great Indian Epic in its unabridged version. Bibek Debroy has rendered this translation eminently readable with plenty of footnotes for the lay reader not knowledgeable about sanskrit , Indian traditions and other cultural peculiarities.

You will change after reading this. There are many parts where the control of the mind is exhaustively dwelt upon. Putting this into practice will open up avenues of self-discovery and soul-searching. The message that we must conquer ourselves first before we conquer the world attained real meaning for me. The characters of the Mahabharata become more relatable and stand apart from their filmy versions of the recent Star Plus Mahabharata .

It took me more than 10 months to read all the 10 books and I consider myself lucky to have completed this Odyssey of the soul.

[Suchith vyloppilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr Bibek Debroy has done an excellent job in translation of one of the greatest scriptures from India. I had heard that such an unabridged text (i would say 'encylopedia of Life')existed in Sanskrit (the most precise and sharp language and the root of many Indian languages). It has also been said to be translated into many regional indian languages for the sake of understanding of the common man. This was of course, done years back by Indian writers for the pure reason of 'human upliftment'.
It is indeed a boon that this script has been now impartially translated to english. It throws open to the world the greatness of this Scripture. It displays the precision, perfection and benovelence with which our ancestors lived. It gives an insight into how our land was, centuries back. It shows and teaches us even today... what is right and what is not right. The results of embarking on the tough, yet fruitful path of Dharma which i think is the neccessity of the hour. A reading of this would always inspire and instill values and virtues ..long forgotten.
In the end, to many who call this scripture a 'Legend', it is an eye-opener as to why it cannot be so!!!

[Gourang Ambulkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent translation. I have always wanted to read the unabridged version of the epic. The choices were very limited, and due to my lack of education in higher Sanskrit, the choices narrowed to only a couple. C.Rajagopalachari version is heavily abridged, and the author has twisted the epic more to sermonize than to lay afore the original, hence discard that. The others were not easily accessible. Therefore, Bibek Debroy's translation of the epic in the form of 10 volumes is a phenomenal effort. I am positive that this will rekindle the interest in the true and entire Mahabharata in the present reader base. Must read for every Indian, especially those who confused B.R. Chopra's depiction to be the final word of Mahabharat. B.R.Chopra's can be said to be but a slice of the entire epic.

About the epic itself, probably mor words than the epic contains have been said and written, so I would only encourage the reader to read this and be a part of the awakening.

[Kiran Bhat · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best stories of humankind. What else is there to tell? Some thoughts:

1) Draupadi is one of the first tragic female characters of literature. Her decision not to marry Karna more or less sparks the entire war of the epic, and her stripping at the hands of the Kauravas is quite gruesome. She is the Lady Macbeth before the Welsh lands had kings, a Faulknerian Caddy to a land with a lot less marsh, and more ghat.

2) Karna is also one of the best antiheros of literature. You find yourself rooting for him at times more often than the Pandavas.

3) Shikhandi is kickass. They do an awesome play in her honor at the NCPA in Mumbai which I strongly recommend.

4) Why won't Bhishma die yet?

Done.

[Dharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning translation of the Mahabharata. It was beautifully written and easy to follow. I enjoyed this very much.

[Anuraag Godavari]

First leg of the journey is done.

I've heard it said that historical literature tells us more about its authors than about the actual subject matters. So what can I tell about the author(s) of the Mahabharata?

- They were living in a time of great religious transformation. The first half of the book consists of backstory to backstory to backstory in the typical layered style of Indian literature, and it reads like a collection of the smaller Hindu myths. It's as if there was a need to canonize all the disparate and disconnected stories of the ancient Indians, uniting them into one mega-story. i've heard this was part of how the Bible came about, so I wouldn't be surprised if lightning struck twice here.

- They lived in a time where everyone was questioning what the purpose of life and the universe were. It feels like every new situation in the story features a lengthy discussion on what is "Dharmic" as characters argue over what should be done. This occurred to me during a scene where a family, who is forced to sacrifice one of their own, goes through several chapters of each member arguing why they should be the sacrifice to save the others. Knowing the message of the Gita beforehand gives this entire dynamic a new color.

Of course, I'm coming at this from the perspective of a Hindu who nonetheless doesn't believe literally in our legends, but I think there's still a lot of value here for those who want to understand the foundations and complexities of our belief system, warts and all. It's a genuinely epic read.

[Sidharth Vardhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The translator begins by saying a lot of it may appear as non-sense and one can't help agreeing - I don't know if any other book uses as many adjectives with out any sense of proportion. Most minor characters are among a hundred other things; beautiful and have slender- waist if they are women, brave and full shoulders if they are men and having highest asceticism if they are Brahmans.

I know it is beginning (500 pages form first book and there are eighteen of them!) of one of awesome st book but really, it calls for a lot of endurance. What makes it more bearable is that it is full of shorter stories - which characters like telling each others.

[Aastha Mehta]

The translation of Mahabharat is a feat in itself. Spanning across 10 volumes, Mahabharata series is unlike anything. Most of us would be aware of the basic story behind the epic. But there are subtle nuances, back-stories, reasonings, characters and concepts which have been hidden behind a layer of simplistic good-v.s-evil storyline. With some patience and dedication, one realises that Mahabharat as translated from the Critical Edition published by Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute by Bibek Debroy, can open up a different world.

[Maya Pillai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently, I started re-reading the volume 1 of the Mahabharata series. There is so much you need to know before you get started on this amazing journey. The author has translated this book in a lucid language and he has gone indepth to bring out the original essence of the book.

The reading is bit slow because, I want the nuances to sink in. So at times I read and again read the same passage.

Its interesting as well as fast moving.

[Mohammad Saqlain · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading the abridged version, I was really curious about reading the original text and it is going to be a behemoth task to read it all. I don't know if I'll ever make it to the 10th volume, but I have finally started.

The first volume explains the creation of the universe with a proper family tree and thousands of unique names of gods and Demi gods and finally to the family of Pandu and Dhritarashtra. It starts with the snake sacrifice where the Bharata was recited in its entirety, and ends with the marriage of Draupadi.

It is slow but never boring or even repetitive (other than the slangs and names) Just from the beginning, some really fascinating stories got me hooked, the snake sacrifice and the curse, the council of snakes planning the birth of their messiah, the extremely badass Garuda: Mighty bird who couldn't be stopped by the combined pantheon of gods , the story of shakuntala carries lots of wisdom and leads to the birth of King Bharat.
Every character is melodramatic by today's standards, even that would be an understatement. Just run into someone on the road and if you tell him to move a little, instead of giving him path, BOOM he will get a little angry and curse you to become a flesh eating monster for your remaining life. Each character is true to his dharma, and dharma becomes more important than the survival of the entire human species as you'll find in one of the stories.

Dharma (duty) is a really complicated concept that lies at the core of the Mahabharata. The bharmans get special treatment and are always shown as the greatest people, always superior to most men. They, with their dharma get away with some of the most questionable things, which in the modern world will not just get you arrested, but even death sentenced.
So it is really interesting to read about the norms and beliefs of those times.
Bhishma for example takes three women from their svayamvara by force and says something like " Those who are literate in the ways of dharma know that the best brides are the ones that are taken by force. " He see's this act as righteous because it was his dharma to get the king Vichitravirya married.
It becomes difficult to read all this and act normal towards it.

Indra is the favourite punching bag of the author as clearly every third mortal character becomes his equivalent in his strength and wisdom. Or maybe it is just a metaphor, this book has too many detailed metaphors.

Had to wait till the very end till Lord Krishna finally made his appearance, I can't wait to read more about him. There's something about him that just gravitates you to him, his every action carries some beauty.

Bibek Debroy does an excellent job at translating the original text, I don't know about the authenticity but it was really easy to understand as each page had glossary at the bottom which always helped.

So yeah, It is off to a great start and let's hope it stays that way.

8/10

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parvas 1-15: It's kind of hard to believe this is just ~10% of the entire Mahabharata. The two long parvas, about the snake sacrifice and the story from Shantanu down to the birth and childhood of the heroes of the story, are probably the most interesting. But aside from some of the framing at the beginning and a little bit of repetition in Bhima's fighting the whole 15 parvas are filled with interesting stories, and I particularly like how the text wraps around and attacks stories from different angles, circling back to flesh out new viewpoints.

[Saumya · Rating 5 out of 5]

As good a translation from original sanskrit language as is possible.Great job Mr. Bibek. Story can be described as roughly an indian Game of thrones only better and more epic just less polished,though diamond may be rough but always more precious than designed polished gold.
As an indian i always knew the basic story since childhood but filnally my dream of reading original epic has been fulfilled.Some of the *details though seems surplus/irritating need a better editor.

[Ronak Patel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Epic tale of Mahabharata.
The story doesn't need any reviews. The book however is pure translation of original content from Sanskrit to English.(You would get the feel while reading, there is not altercation from the author). Hence seems absolute authentic version if one really wants to read the "as is" version of the Mahabharata.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Accessible and fun

A major effort, and a distinct success in producing a lively, unfaltering translation. It reads like an unending Bollywood script, including love, valor, war, deceit and everything else that makes life full and unpredictable.

[Ayush Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part 1 of Bibek Debroy’s magisterial 10-part translation of the Mahabharat only suffers from one glitch - the actual story doesn’t begin till halfway through. Debroy, though, is a consummate translator, and I look forward to reading the other parts.

[Prakash Iyangar · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is an Epic

An epic in many ways and the story does get repetitive at points but the best part about this book is the prose it is written in is much more friendlier narrative to read. I finally found a version of Mahabharata I can read!

[Devansh Joshi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great accurate translation of this colossal text. Footnotes are repetitive in places though, could also use footnotes in some places where they're needed more. I don't need to know for the hundredth time who Shakra is, I can guess, but some incidents in the book hint at beliefs that are never fully explored.

[Rohan Rajesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I were to recommend a translation of the Mahabharata, this would be it. Debroy provides a faithful engaging prose translation of what is a complicated, meandering epic poem. This being my first read through of the original text, I recommend anyone interested in fully enjoying the Mahabharata first be familiar with the core story and characters; reading the entire epic, even in its critical edition, will be like drinking from a firehose without the requisite background.

[Jai · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I heard about critical edition, I was happy and wanted to read this immediately and I am glad I read it.

But if you are a casual reader, you must remember It's not meant to be read like a novel largely.
It is an Epic.

The first few chapters with a description of lineages and family trees are excruciating in detail and it just doesn't seem very feasible to digest it all. The story started with Arjun's grandson Parikshit's son and it takes time to reach the meat and bones of parts that we are familiar with.

But it's Mahabharat. I cannot review it, it is what it is.

[Gregory Moses · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story predates Christianity and has endured for thousands of years. But sure, Goodreads, let's give it a star rating--five stars, one star better than John Dickson Carr's underrated golden age mystery Poison In Jest, but basically equivalent to Wodehouse's classic farce How Right You Are, Jeeves.

Although a review is almost as absurd as a star rating, I do think I can make myself useful to potential readers—this is probably not what you think it is. It is not a translation of ``The Mahabharata, a major Indian epic written in the first few centuries BCE.” It is a translation of “The Mahabharata, a speculative text created by a group of scholars a little over a century ago.” Let's dive into this.


THERE IS NO SINGLE TEXT WE CAN CALL “THE MAHABHARATA”

It's critical to understand that “The Mahabharata” does not exist as a single canonical text--there are hundreds of ancient manuscripts, all of them different, but generally categorized as Northern (shorter) and Southern (longer) recensions. Although there is obviously major overlap between the texts, these are not minor differences—there are Northern texts where the Bhagavad Gita is up to 800 verses long, compared to the 701 in most Southern versions. This largely isn't viewed as a problem, because most Hindus aren't using the Mahabharata the way a conservative Christian might use the Bible—it's a living tradition, and it's fine to have textual diversity. But a translator can't translate a tradition or a recension—they need a text. One might expect that Debroy will simply pick one, based on scholarly or religious consensus, but that is not the case.


WHAT THIS IS, IF IT'S NOT “THE MAHABHARATA”:

Debroy has translated the Critical Edition of the Mahabharata. The Critical Edition was a massive scholarly project by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute intended to uncover the earliest version of the Mahabharata. Basically, since all those different manuscripts have thousands of lines worth of material in common, they must all ultimately spring from a common ancestor. The Critical Edition is an attempt to recover that ancestor, stripping away later traditions and additions. They did this by comparing over 1000 manuscripts and only including the material that appears in a significant number of them. This was a massive scholarly effort, taking over forty years to complete, and this edition now forms a major part of any scholarly study of the Mahabharata.

Although the result of serious scholarship and critical effort, the Critical Edition is speculative—there is no ancient Sanskrit version of this text—and is significantly different from what practicing Hindus have read for millennia. For example, there is an extremely well-known episode where the god Krishna saves a woman, Draupadi , the wife of his ally, from being disrobed and humiliated in the enemy court. This is a major story in Krishna-centric traditions—but the scholars constructing the Critical Edition determined that Draupadi's prayer to Krishna and his response was probably not in the earliest versions, and removed them. Instead, she is saved by nebulous and impersonal divine forces.

I think it's especially important to understand this because this translation calls itself “unabridged.” This is true, in the sense that it is a complete English translation of the Critical Edition … but the Critical Edition is omitting huge swathes of tradition. It's fundamentally different than buying an “unabridged” translation of Crime and Punishment, where all the events in the Russian will also appear in the English, whereas the Critical Edition is about 25% shorter than an average Northern manuscript, and about 35% shorter than an average Southern manuscript.


WHO WAS THIS BIBEK DEBROY FELLOW?

Would you believe an economist? Quite a major one, too.

But in spite of the lack of crossover from his academic discipline, Bibek Debroy was one of the major modern translators of Sanskrit Hindu literature into English. He translated both of the major epics (this and the Ramayana) and several of the major Puranas, including both the Vishnu and the Shiva Puranas.

Debroy's translational philosophy is to put texts into plain, accurate English and let them speak for themselves. This doesn't mean the text sounds bad or is intentionally simplistic. But, for example:

Then, wounded by fearful swords, lances and clubs, sliced by discuses, the demons vomited a lot of blood and fell down on the ground.

A Victorian translator would never have accepted “a lot”; to Debroy, it accurately represents the text, and there's no need to make it fancier than it is.

Perhaps because his background was not in religious studies, his scholarly apparatus tends to be minimal—this is not where to go if you're looking for a detailed introduction trying to date the Mahabharata, or discuss its compositional history. He is generous with footnotes, but the vast majority are simply brief reminders about names (e.g. that the “mother of the Pandavas” is Kunti). Readers should probably come into this with at least some knowledge of Hinduism, because Debroy isn't going to explain the basics for you.


IF THIS DOESN'T SOUND LIKE WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR:

Further complicating things for anyone hoping to read “the unabridged Mahabharata" is the fact that it's unlikely that we're getting a modern, unabridged translation based on either of the manuscript traditions—it's a massive undertaking, after all. The Clay Sanskrit Library translation was based on several Northern manuscripts, but the publisher ceased operations before it was finished. Kisari Mohan Ganguli did create a complete translation based on Northern manuscripts, but it's over a century old and in Victorian English, and often considered slightly dated:

“Upon the Kuru king and Bhima, the foremost of all endued with strength, having entered the arena, the spectators were divided into two parties in consequence of the partiality swaying their affections.”

Compare that to Debroy:

‘When the Kuru prince and Bhima, supreme among strong ones, descended into the arena, the spectators divided into two factions, each partial towards its own favourite.”

Ramesh Menon led an effort to take the Ganguli translation and modernize it, line by line, but I cannot say I love it--whatever the original Sanskrit, its constant switching between tenses makes it a little hard to parse in my opinion:

"When Duryodhana and Bhima, strongest of all Kshatriyas, fight in the arena, they immediately divide the spectators between them.

There are no English translations based on a Southern manuscript, so even should you decide to read the Kisari Mohan Ganguli translation, it doesn't mean you're getting “the complete Mahabharata”--an estimated seven hundred pages of material remain unavailable to English-language readers.

If this frustrates you, it may be comforting to reflect that modern Indians very rarely read full versions of any manuscript of the Mahabharata. Instead, they typically read accessible retellings of the epic, and many of those have been translated into English. R.K. Narayan’s The Mahabharata is highly regarded, and accessible at 200 pages. More adventurous souls may be interested in Ramesh Menon's 1,500 page version (The Mahabharata - A Modern Rendering in two volumes; this is different from his modification of the Kisari Mohan Ganguli translation)


IF YOU'RE STILL INTERESTED:

But if you're still interested in reading a ten-volume academic translation of a scholarly reconstruction of the early Mahabharata that is very much not the text that Hindus read, memorize, study, or venerate, and you want to know if I enjoyed reading this volume? Yes, certainly. As my five-star rating clearly indicates, this is exactly as good as one of the better Wodehouse novels.

Slightly more seriously, although this may lack the flourishes that any actual manuscript would have, leanness can be a strength, too.

For example, there's a shocking episode where Arjuna's bow teacher convinces a caste-less boy who is devoted to him to maim himself because Arjuna is jealous of his talent. In some manuscripts, there are lengthy additions praising him for his actions. And, probably more palatable to the modern audience, you can also find texts condemning it. The Critical Edition, free from such editorializing, allows the incident to stand on its own. How does it fit into broader themes of jealousy and caste? The reader must do their own analysis.

Indeed, readers who are going into this knowing that the god Krishna is hanging his colors on one of the sides might be shocked by its frequent moral ambiguity—this volume contains a famous scene where the villain of the epic defends his mixed-caste friend from abuse by one of the nominal heroes in a scene that radiates genuine warmth: “Trembling with affection, he kissed him on the head and wet with his tears the head that was already damp with water from the instatement as the king of Anga.”

Conversely, the heroes will do something unspeakable in order to fake their deaths in a burning building. And this provides a perfect example of the Critical Edition perhaps being more interesting than a manuscript:

“Let us escape, unobserved by anyone, after setting fire to the armoury, burning Purochana to death and leaving six bodies here.”

If they're going to fake their deaths, they need corpses. And they get them; a female hunter and her five sons visit the house, and get so drunk they pass out. The Pandavas—our heroes—set fire to the house, burning them to death.

Now let's look at the Kisari Mohan Ganguli translation. This is based on a Northern manuscript, and technically tells the same story—the Pandavas still fire the house when six innocent people are sleeping in it. But check this out:

“Setting fire to the arsenal and burning Purochana to death and letting his body lie here, let us, six persons, fly hence unobserved by all!”

The writer/editor of this particular manuscript was uncomfortable with this scene, so although he kept it largely in tact, he removed the part where one of the Pandavas makes it explicit that having six bodies is part of their plan. It could now be read as a tragic (but in some ways fortuitous) accident—maybe the Pandavas didn't know there were innocents sleeping there, and wouldn't have done it if they had. However, an emerging theme of the epic is than dharma must be restored. but that it might not be possible to restore it without resorting to adharmic methods—by sanitizing these methods, this theme is disfigured.

It does have to be admitted, however, that the Critical Edition occasionally lapses into incoherence. Its methodology was to go through the manuscripts, line by line, and at every stage attempt to pick the oldest line. Occasionally, the result of this is that lines get chosen that directly contradict each other—Bibek Debroy departs from his usual policy and attempts to point these out to avoid confusion.

This volume is only the beginning—of the eighteen traditional sections (parvas) that make up the Mahabharata, it doesn't quite contain the first. While even the most patient reader might sometimes wish the pace would pick up a little--while leafing through the third summary of the story that we're here to read ourselves, or during the sometimes exhausting genealogies—this is a staggering work, sometimes frustrating but always fascinating.

[Rachana Avvari]

AFTER 2 YEARS FINALLY DID IT😭

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back in December 2018, a small accident left me with a spinal injury, forcing me to stay in bed for more than two weeks. Outside my room, the world was moving through a momentous winter: the passing of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, headline-making decisions at the G20 Summit in Argentina, and the afterglow of the dramatic Thailand cave rescue that had captured global attention earlier that year. India, too, had its own share of notable events—sharp cold waves sweeping across the north, the country retaining its position as the world’s largest receiver of remittances, and celebrations in the fields of literature and sports, including Amitav Ghosh being honoured with the Jnanpith Award.

Amid this combination of personal stillness and global motion, I found one unexpected gift of time: the opportunity to read through all ten volumes of Bibek Debroy’s complete English translation of the Mahabharata.

When I first picked up the opening volume of Bibek Debroy’s Mahabharata that winter of 2018, I wasn’t just opening a book—I was opening a universe while lying flat on my back, held captive by my own spine. My body was still, but my mind was hungry in a way only pain can make it. Into that stillness, ‘‘Adi Parva’’ entered like a visitor who had been waiting for precisely this crack in my life to walk through.

From the very first pages, where Janamejaya burns with a fury that threatens to consume the world’s serpents, I felt as though I had stepped into the epic not as a reader but as a witness. The Geeta’s whisper—’kālo ’smi’, I am Time—seemed to echo behind every word. Here was time unfolding itself, time narrating itself, time refusing to be tamed.

Debroy’s translation offered me the narrative in clean, unadorned English, the kind of language that doesn’t show off but clears the way so the epic’s own music can come through.

It felt like sitting in a clear stream and watching the stones at the bottom glow in their own textures.

But the Mahabharata never arrives politely. It explodes. It expands. It arrives the way Shakespeare’s tragedies do—full of destiny and flaw, ambition and consequence.

As I moved through the genealogies of Bharata’s line, I felt as though someone were drawing constellations in the dark and placing me right at the center. Every king, every queen, every curse, every boon—they weren’t just historical details; they were seeds that would bloom into wars, exiles, heartbreaks, sermons, and revelations.

Rabindranath’s voice rose in my mind more than once, because this unfolding had his favourite quality: the ‘samudrikta’, the oceanic sweep of human experience.

Shantanu’s story hit me with an almost painful beauty. A king who loved a river and watched her drown their newborns, saying nothing because love made him powerless. I could almost hear Rabindranath’s dusk songs behind it, those melodies that carry equal parts devotion and sorrow.

And then Devavrata’s vow—oh, that vow. When he renounced his right to the throne and vowed lifelong celibacy, I felt the air in my room change.

It was Shakespearean in scale, almost like Hamlet’s irrevocable shift when he confronts the ghost—except here the tragedy wasn’t born of doubt but of absolute clarity. It was the kind of vow that forges an entire epic—and destroys a man in slow motion.

As I continued reading, I realised that Adi Parva isn’t just the “first book”—it is the entire moral DNA of the Mahabharata written in miniature.

Every consequence, every irony, every tragedy of the upcoming war is already present, flickering beneath the surface. The epic moves between cosmic creation myths and intimate human dilemmas with the ease of a dancer switching rhythms.

One chapter opens the heavens; the next enters a hut in the forest. Shakespeare shifts between palace politics and battlefield but even he doesn’t have this level of recursive storytelling, this willingness to hold multitudes.

The introduction of Satyavati felt like a quiet earthquake. She entered without fanfare, but she carried the kind of destiny that alters kingdoms. Something about her reminded me of Tagore’s heroines—women who seem gentle but carry inside them the full weight of a narrative’s turning point.

The birth of Vyasa through her union with Parashara was mythic and intimate at the same time, and I remember thinking: this is metafiction before metafiction had a name. The epic creates the sage who creates the epic. Tagore would have smiled at that circularity; Shakespeare would have been envious.

The Mahabharata’s constant play with curses and boons fascinated me. A slight offense, a stray word, a moment of impatience—each of these could unleash generations’ worth of consequence. It felt both absurd and deeply true, like karma being explained through drama rather than philosophy.

The Geeta later talks about ‘karmaphala’, the fruit of action, but here in Adi Parva that doctrine takes flesh and walks the earth. And honestly, it has a very Desi-drama energy: everyone is one curse away from disaster.

When I reached the stories of Dhritarashtra, Pandu, and Vidura, it struck me how ruthlessly symmetrical the epic is. Dhritarashtra is born blind and becomes politically blind. Pandu is physically perfect but cannot love without dying. Vidura, born of a maid, becomes the wisest man in the tale.

This is Shakespearean irony with Vedic precision. And it reminded me of something Rabindranath once wrote—that destiny and character are braided together like strands of a single rope.

Pandu’s curse came like a dagger to the chest. Killing a sage disguised as a deer—an act committed in ignorance—sets off the chain that will lead to the birth of the Pandavas. This tension between intention and consequence is pure Mahabharata, pure Geeta, and pure Shakespeare. Kunti’s mantra only deepens that complexity. She calls gods as casually as one may call a neighbour, and the divine births tumble into the world with both majesty and melancholy.

But Karna—oh Karna. When she sends him away, terrified of scandal, I felt something inside me crack. Karna’s story is the saddest poem I know, shaped by abandonment the way Shakespeare’s tragic heroes are shaped by their fatal flaws.

The childhood rivalry between the Pandavas and the Kauravas unfolded like a psychological study. Duryodhana’s jealousy was so painfully human that I couldn’t even read him as a villain. He reminded me of Shakespeare’s more complex antagonists—men like Macbeth or Edmund, who fall not because they are born evil but because something inside them bruises too easily.

And with Shakuni whispering in his ear like an Indian Iago, the stage was set for the world’s most consequential sibling rivalry.

Then came the forest: Hidimba, Bhima, Ghatotkacha. Myth meets tenderness. Strength meets vulnerability. It was one of the most unexpectedly human stretches of the epic.

The Mahabharata doesn’t need to justify its detours; they enrich the journey the way the Geeta enriches the war—not by distraction, but by deepening meaning.

The arrival of Draupadi—the woman born of fire—was pure theatre. Her swayamvara had the shimmer of Shakespeare’s grand entrances, the kind he reserves for queens and enchantresses.

But Draupadi is nothing like Shakespeare’s women. She is fiercer, more central, more destiny-struck. When Arjuna wins her, it feels inevitable. When Kunti inadvertently orders her to be shared among the five brothers, it feels like the entire epic inhales sharply. One thoughtless sentence. One irreversible ripple. The Mahabharata doesn’t let you forget how fragile fate is.

Indraprastha’s founding felt like a sunrise after a long night. For a moment—just a moment—the world of the epic balanced itself. But even in those golden chapters, I could see the cracks forming. Adi Parva is honest like that. It shows you beauty already tinged with ash, just the way Rabindranath often wrote of happiness trembling like a drop of water at the edge of a petal.

Reading this volume from my sickbed was its own pilgrimage. My body could not move, but my mind traversed forests, palaces, cosmic realms.

I felt like the ‘‘Geeta’s’’ ‘sākṣī’, the witness, observing the dance of dharma from a place of enforced stillness. Pain made me porous. The epic seeped into me, filling the spaces where fear and frustration used to sit.

Shakespeare once wrote that “Sweet are the uses of adversity,” and for the first time in my life, I understood it without irony. Rabindranath would have called it ‘antar mukhī’, the turning inward.

When I closed the first volume, I didn’t feel like someone who had finished reading a book. I felt like someone who had stepped through a doorway and been changed by the landscape on the other side.

Adi Parva wasn’t just a beginning—it was initiation. Debroy didn’t embellish it, didn’t interpret it, didn’t modernise it. He simply held up a mirror and let Vyasa’s world pour through.

By the end of it, I realised I was ready—emotionally, intellectually, spiritually—for the rest of the marathon.

The winter outside remained cold, but something inside me had shifted, warmed, awakened.

Read and reread. Keep reading. Every reading gives you a new meaning.

[Al Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Notes taken while reading the complete 10 volumes are listed below, reserving my full opinion until I complete the full text.

Notes on Volume 1
- Section 1: Explains loss vs expectation of victory, the 5 elements (inspiration for sci fi movies, Saturday morning cartoons e.g. Captain Planet, Fifth Element, Terry Pratchett's The Fifth Elephant parody). Argument for moderation (things become sins when abused).

- Section 2: Rama creates the 5 lakes of blood, rest acts as table of contents

- Section 3: Early examples of the Quest plot and McGuffin literary device (Utanka being sent to retrieve stolen earrings from the underground Kingdom of Nagas).
Ruru sacrificing 1/2 his life for his love Pramadava mirrors Yayati passing his old age curse later, though out of love rather than penance.

- Section 4: The poisoning of innocent Pramadava establishes the inherent evil of the snake, shared in Christian mythology via Genesis.

- Section 5: War between Gods and Demons, Vishnu disguises himself as a woman to distract a high-ranking Demon (early example of the Trickster Trait possessed by many magical beings in the pantheon of ancient-to-medieval mythologies and folk tales. Elves, pixies, faeries and their untrustworthy nature pre-"Disneyification").
The 60,000 Rishis each the size of a thumb, make high pitched noises instead of speech and recur throughout with mischievous antics (comic relief, today akin to Minions, A Bug's Life's Tuck and Roll, Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men, Oz's Winged Monkeys etc).
The 6 Vices presented here (Desire, Anger, Greed, Ego, Delusion and Envy) crossover with the 7 Deadly Sins of Biblical literature.

- Section 6: "The grandfather of the Pandavas was born on an island in the river Yamuna, in the womb of the virgin Kali..." The concept of the Virgin Birth presented here long before the writing of the New Testament.

- Section 7: The consumption of wine is forbidden as it leads to the surrender of secrets and power. Similar to the forbidding of consuming alcohol in The Qu'ran as it "allows Satan to enter one's heart."
Yayati's story of being cursed with old age is told here. The curse and re-acquiring youth by having to pass the curse on to another/take another person's youth is retold and upended through several contemporary fantasy stories e.g. Dorian Gray, Neil Gaiman's Stardust and Philip K. Dick's The Cookie Lady.
Yayati living for 1000 years and becoming a hermit in the forest draws comparison to Methuselah (Noah's father in the Old Testament with similar mannerisms and temperament as Yayati, explored further in Darren Aronofsky's movie adaptation).
The 5 elements, lakes of blood, sacrificial fires, sons of Yayati, The number 5 is of great importance in keeping with many other religious scriptures written afterwards, certain numbers are repeated (3 = The Divine Number, Holy trinity, 3 gifts at the birth, the 8 nights of Hannukah, 7 days in the week, 7 sins, 7 dais of the temple etc).
The 6 senses presented here connect to Descartes' later Meditations on how the 5 senses cannot always be trusted, but the mind can perceive more. But if the sixth sense IS the mind, as proposed in the Mahabharata, this presents another difficulty for Descartes' argument 2000+ years before he presented it. Yet it can also be said that the mind cannot always be trusted and deceives itself in cases of brain damage and severe mental illness, degenerative diseases etc. The Rationalist vs Empiricist debate over the reliability of the senses is put in new light as, it seems, we were initially considered to have 6 senses before 5 was later adopted.
The 8 forms of marriage (rather than 1 uniform marriage) suggests the manipulation of legal loopholes, rigged bloodlines for political gain and (in part) explains the complexity of the caste system.
Shortly after the start of the Bharata lineage there is a drowning of sons allowed by the King, the son Gangadatta is saved a becomes a great leader, an act which builds to a great chariot escape. Story beats shared in Moses' rise to power in Exodus. Various rules and ceremonies are put in place following this (a structure also mirrored by Leviticus and Numbers, with the writing style shifting between stories and records, novel and journal, drama and document): the forbidding of adultery, rule on promiscuity, curses as punishments for crimes, the science of weapons, pursuit of self control and the invention of cricket as a sport.

- Section 8: The creation of the elements from weapons by Bibhatsu, tools of creation AND destruction simultaneously. Indra's "radiant and coloured bow" appearing in the sky following an immense thunderstorm.
Explanation for weather as acts of the gods, still called so to this day even in legal documentation, the rainbow promise following the 40 day flood in Genesis, the flood story echoing throughout ancient scriptures from various cultures as an apocalyptic event.
The three ways to become a king lend to more speculation of loopholes as with the 8 kinds of marriage.
The burning of the House of Lac after tricking enemies to enter under false pretence of hospitality coincides with the Trojan Horse manoeuvre while providing thematic inspiration behind The House of Wax horror movie and its remakes.

- Section 9: A story of the power music has over ageing, the following of passions in life slows one's decay both physically and mentally.

- Section 10: The description of one of the hells, the idea of there being more than one type of hell later expounded in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy with the concept of a layered hell divided into multiple circles based on sins committed.

- Section 11: The best of the forms of marriage is revealed (The Gandharva), the hierarchy of marriages among others present in the lineage and civilisation, their immense benefits and room for manipulation for various ends (good, bad and in between) reflect others both ancient and contemporary that are too many to count.
The 6 tastes are explained here (pungent, sour, sweet, salty, bitter and astringent) [see notes on Section 7 for 6 senses and their implications for the Rationalist vs Empiricist debate]
The cow Nandini creates an army of powerful men. The cow is a sacred animal as is often recounted throughout the volume, with a common compliment being to describe one as a "bull among men", potential connection with the first section of The Qu'ran being named The Cow.

- Section 12: Elements of science fiction here with Panchala's "artificial machine set up above and onto this machine he fixed a golden target." A combat practice machine with moving parts, used in several Rocky-esque training montages in sci fi movies and books alike: Ender's Game, Star Wars and Dune to name a few.
The story of the inexperienced "weakling" Jishnu defeating the powerful giant Partha, well versed in the science of weapons, is all too reminiscent of the David and Goliath story. It is nothing short of remarkable that various BCE cultures share similarities in their mythology, religions and folk tales, to the point where contact between them must have occurred earlier than is often assumed. The civilisations were more advanced than are generally given credit.

- Section 13: A debate on the subject of a woman being wed to two different husbands and whether this is or is not morally sound, consulting a contradiction in types of marriage.
The story of the Mountain King's interrupted game of dice and his punishment. Possibly alluded to in Edvard Grieg's piece 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' and a side character who pops up in the Andrew Garfield movie 'Under the Silver Lake'.

- Section 14: Reputation as the ultimate currency when it comes to meaning in one's life. "A man who has lost his reputation lives in vain... As long as a man's good reputation lasts, he does not die. He is destroyed when his good reputation is lost."

- Section 15: The acquisition of the kingdom as a calm before the storm/pride before the fall. The war between the Kouravas and Pandavas is yet to come so as a story beat it's easy to see why it's lasted throughout the centuries.

[Bimit · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mahabharata has a perennial value that can be seamlessly incorporated into any age and any decade. The writer has tracked the Critical Edition from the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute for the translation. With a noteworthy ardour, Sri Bibek Debroy has reconstructed Vyasa's dramaturgy with the expertise and meticulousness of a scholastic. This is a celestial endeavour that prevails with regards to drawing out the magnificence and feelings of the epic, as much as the impediments of a devoted interpretation sanction. The abundant footnotes go with you like a loyal companion. Sri Bibek with his clear composing fashion touches on the effect of grown-up choices on youthful, naive minds.

The detailed summary sets the tone so that the reader is in the frequency on how it was supposed to be read (or rather listened to). The original book was called Jaya and had 8800 shlokas which were later expanded to 24000 shlokas and called Bharata. Finally, it was expanded to 90,000 (or 100000) shlokas and was finally called Mahabharata. The volume 1 starts with snake sacrifice and winds up at Draupadi's marriage to the 5. The cognizance of Mahabharata is formed by the plethora of TV shows based on it and the screenplay writers and directors have altered or removed some instances.

1. Draupadi was beautiful and radiant but dark in colour, not fair. She was also called Krishnaa (Krishnaa means someone who is dark in colour)

2. Karna studied and trained under Drona contrary to TV shows that represent Guru Dronacharya refusing to tutor him. Karna was also jealous of Arjun.

3. In Dronacharya's bird-eye test where Arjun Says "I can only see the eye of the bird", instead of the eye, it's the head of the bird.

4. There is no instance of Draupadi shaming Karna for being a Sutputra (Charioteers son) at her Swayamvara. Sutputra (Addressed as Souti) is a son of Suta. Suta is the son of a Kshatriya father and a Brahmana mother. They were charioteers by profession but also bards and raconteurs.

5. Draupadi was wedded to 5 Pandavas only after a thorough and logical discussion with her father (Drupada) and Ved Vyasa. The marriage wasn't only due to the "Command of Kunti"

"Mahabharata Volume 1" is an interesting read for someone who has a keen interest in religion and philosophy while it is also a sight of history, culture and legacy of the world's oldest civilization that is still vigorous.

[Aritra Ghatak · Rating 5 out of 5]

In that Holy land, free from any bad qualities of the earth, eighteen Akshouhinis of soldiers eagerly assembled for battle.
One chariot, one elephant, five foot soldiers and three horses make up a Patti. Three Pattis are known as a Senamukha and Three Senamukhas make up a Gulma. Three Gulmas are named a Gana and Three Ganas a Vahini. The wise know that Three Vahinis collectively form a Pritana. Three Pritana make a Chamu, Three Chamu an Ankini and the wise say that Ten times as Ankini is known as an Akshouhini. Those who know arithmetic have caculated that there are 21,870 Chariots in an Akshouhini and the number of Elephants is the same. Know that the number of Foot Soldiers is 109,350 and the number of Horses is 65,610.
The Eighteen Akshouhinis of the Kurus and the Pandavas were made according to these numbers and the cause destroyed them all.