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Mahabharata
mahabharata-2
442 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2024
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About the author
William Buck
23 books16 followersWilliam Buck was a Sanskritist, devoting his life's work to modern retellings of the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and the unfinished Harivamsa.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 31, 2026
A VERSION INTENDED TO BE MORE ‘READABLE’ TO MODERN WESTERN READERS
The Publisher’s Preface to this 1973 edition states, “In 1955 Bill Buck discovered an elaborate 19th century edition of ‘The Sacred Song of the Lord, the Bhagavad Gita of Lord Krishna’ in a state library in ... Nevada. Immediately captivated, he plunged into a study of Indian literature which resulted in this rendering of the Mahabharata, one of the Ramayana, and an unfinished manuscript of Harivamsa---unfinished because of the death of Bill Buck in 1970 at the age of 37.
“His discovery of the Bhagavad-Gita moved Bill Buck to read the Mahabharata, and he would be satisfied with nothing but the full translation, an 11-volume set of which was then being reprinted in India. So determined was he that he subsidized the reprinting when it became apparent that the publisher had insufficient funds to complete the task.
“Midway through his reading of Volume 3, Buck decided the Mahabharata should be rewritten for a modern English-speaking audience. In his own words, “Mahabharata was about 5,000 pages, and Ramayana much shorter. When I read these translations I thought how nice to tell the story so it wouldn’t be so hard to read. We talk about all the repetition and digression of the originals, but as you read all that endless impossible prose a very definite character comes to each actor in the story, and the land and times are most clearly shown. I wanted to transfer this story to a readable book.’
“To this end, Bill Buck began years of reading and rereading the translations, studying Sanskrit, and writing. One of his approaches to this task was to decipher all the elaborate appellatives used for heroes and gods, kings and princesses which were used in the original text, often in place of names. These were qualities related to the characters, of which Buck compiled lists. He later used the adjectives interlaced with descriptions to preserve the mood and meanings of the characters in his own renderings. He also read all available English translations and versions of the two great epics, later saying of them, ‘I have never seen versions of either story in English which were not mere outlines, or incomplete, except for the two literal translations.’…” (Pg. ix-x)
It continues, “Buck’s vision of his task was firm, with a balanced form that remained clearly in his mind as he worked. He said, ‘It is always apparent just what is the thread of the story… and what are later interpolations. It is stuffed with preachments, treatises of special interests, doctrines of later caste systems, long passages of theological dogma, but these are in chunks, and only slow the story.’ His great goal was to tell the tales in such a way that the modern reader would not be discouraged from knowing and loving the stories as he did. He wanted to convey the spirit, the truth, of the epics.
“In answer to a critic of his manuscripts he replied, ‘I’ve made many changes and combinations in both books, but I wish to have them considered as stories which they are, rather than as examples of technically accurate scholarship, which I told you they weren’t. I’d be more than willing to make any changes that could help the internal structures of the books, but I wouldn’t want to change anything to conform to the ‘real story,’ either in details of the stories or, more subtle, in some of the places where I have given the people some of the characteristics that we admire today, and which make a story that we can read today. One thing however is true. Read the stories and you get the real spirit of the original once you’re done, and if they’re entertaining that’s all I ask.’ And to a friend, ‘I have changed my Mahabharata from the original in a few little ways besides length. I got a good story out of it, but what will a professor think of its use or its scholarly fidelity? Still, if you read it you know that Mahabharata.’
“That was his aim---to make it possible for the modern reader to KNOW the Mahabharata in a way meaningful in terms of modern life, as well as in terms of its origins. Of the finished manuscript he wrote, ‘My method in writing both Mahabharata and Ramayana was to begin with a literal translation from which to extract the story, and then to tell that story in an interesting way that would preserve the spirit and flavor of the original. The Mahabharata especially is a case of a good story lost among an overgrown garden of digressions, interruptions, and no few sermons. My motive is that of the storyteller. I’m not trying to prove anything and I have made my own changes to tell the story better. Here are two great stories just waiting for people to read them. Based on the words of ancient songs, I have written books. I tried to make them interesting to read. I don’t think you will find many other books like them.’”
B.A. van Nooten wrote in his Introduction, “The Mahabharata is an Indian epic, in its original Sanskrit probably the largest ever composed. Combined with a second great epic, the Ramayana, it embodies the essence of the Indian cultural heritage. William Buck, a young American whose untimely death at the age of 37 occurred only months after he delivered manuscripts for both epics to the University of California Press in Berkeley, had retold these classics… in a language and at a length that make them available to the contemporary reader.
“The Mahabharata is the story of a dynastic struggle, culminating in an awesome battle between two branches of a single Indian ruling family. The account of the fight between the Kurus and the Pandavas for the fertile and wealthy land at the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges rivers near Delhi is enhanced by peripheral stories that provide a social, moral, and cosmological background to the climatic battle. We do not know exactly when the battle took place. The Mahabharata … was composed over a period of some four hundred years, during the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD, and already at that time the battle was a legendary event, preserved in the folk tales and martial records of the ruling tribes. The Indian calendar places its date at 3102 BC, the beginning of the Age of Misfortune… but more objective evidence, though scanty and inferential, points to a date close to 1400 BC.
“At that time Aryan tribes had just begun to settle in India after their invasion from the Iranian highlands… The tribal communities varied in size and were each governed by the ‘prominent families’… from among which one nobleman was consecrated king. The kings quarreled and engaged in intertribal warfare as a matter of course; their conflicts were sometimes prolonged affairs, sometimes little more than cattle raids.
“It is in this context that the Bharata war took place. The Kurus were an ancient tribe who had long been the rulers of the area of the upper reaches of the Yamuna River. The Pandus, or Pandevas, were a newly emergent clan living… some sixty miles southwest of the Kuru capital… According to the Mahabharata, the new aristocrats were invited to the court of the ancient noble house of Kuru to engage in a gambling contest. There they were tricked first out of their kingdom and then into a promise not to retaliate for twelve years. In the 13th year they took refuge at the court of the Matsyas, where they allied themselves with the Kurus’ eastern and southern neighbors, the Pancalas. Together in a vast host they marched up to [the capital city], where they met on Kuruksetra, the plain of the Kurus. Here the Kurus and their allies were defeated.
“In bare outline that is the story of which the bard sings. But the composer of the Mahabharata has portrayed the actions of the warriors in both a heroic and a moral context, and it should be understood as a re-enactment of a cosmic moral confrontation, not simply as an account of a battle…. The epic bard views the events of the war as prompted by observances and violations of the laws of morality. The basic principle of cosmic or individual existence is dharma. It is the doctrine of the religious and ethical rights and duties of each individual, and refers generally to duty ordained by religion, but may also mean simply virtue, or right conduct. Every human being is expected to live according to his dharma. Violations of dharma results in disaster.” (Pg. xiii-xv)
While purists and scholars may dislike Buck’s interpretation of the story, it is definitely a more appealing approach for the average Western reader.
The Publisher’s Preface to this 1973 edition states, “In 1955 Bill Buck discovered an elaborate 19th century edition of ‘The Sacred Song of the Lord, the Bhagavad Gita of Lord Krishna’ in a state library in ... Nevada. Immediately captivated, he plunged into a study of Indian literature which resulted in this rendering of the Mahabharata, one of the Ramayana, and an unfinished manuscript of Harivamsa---unfinished because of the death of Bill Buck in 1970 at the age of 37.
“His discovery of the Bhagavad-Gita moved Bill Buck to read the Mahabharata, and he would be satisfied with nothing but the full translation, an 11-volume set of which was then being reprinted in India. So determined was he that he subsidized the reprinting when it became apparent that the publisher had insufficient funds to complete the task.
“Midway through his reading of Volume 3, Buck decided the Mahabharata should be rewritten for a modern English-speaking audience. In his own words, “Mahabharata was about 5,000 pages, and Ramayana much shorter. When I read these translations I thought how nice to tell the story so it wouldn’t be so hard to read. We talk about all the repetition and digression of the originals, but as you read all that endless impossible prose a very definite character comes to each actor in the story, and the land and times are most clearly shown. I wanted to transfer this story to a readable book.’
“To this end, Bill Buck began years of reading and rereading the translations, studying Sanskrit, and writing. One of his approaches to this task was to decipher all the elaborate appellatives used for heroes and gods, kings and princesses which were used in the original text, often in place of names. These were qualities related to the characters, of which Buck compiled lists. He later used the adjectives interlaced with descriptions to preserve the mood and meanings of the characters in his own renderings. He also read all available English translations and versions of the two great epics, later saying of them, ‘I have never seen versions of either story in English which were not mere outlines, or incomplete, except for the two literal translations.’…” (Pg. ix-x)
It continues, “Buck’s vision of his task was firm, with a balanced form that remained clearly in his mind as he worked. He said, ‘It is always apparent just what is the thread of the story… and what are later interpolations. It is stuffed with preachments, treatises of special interests, doctrines of later caste systems, long passages of theological dogma, but these are in chunks, and only slow the story.’ His great goal was to tell the tales in such a way that the modern reader would not be discouraged from knowing and loving the stories as he did. He wanted to convey the spirit, the truth, of the epics.
“In answer to a critic of his manuscripts he replied, ‘I’ve made many changes and combinations in both books, but I wish to have them considered as stories which they are, rather than as examples of technically accurate scholarship, which I told you they weren’t. I’d be more than willing to make any changes that could help the internal structures of the books, but I wouldn’t want to change anything to conform to the ‘real story,’ either in details of the stories or, more subtle, in some of the places where I have given the people some of the characteristics that we admire today, and which make a story that we can read today. One thing however is true. Read the stories and you get the real spirit of the original once you’re done, and if they’re entertaining that’s all I ask.’ And to a friend, ‘I have changed my Mahabharata from the original in a few little ways besides length. I got a good story out of it, but what will a professor think of its use or its scholarly fidelity? Still, if you read it you know that Mahabharata.’
“That was his aim---to make it possible for the modern reader to KNOW the Mahabharata in a way meaningful in terms of modern life, as well as in terms of its origins. Of the finished manuscript he wrote, ‘My method in writing both Mahabharata and Ramayana was to begin with a literal translation from which to extract the story, and then to tell that story in an interesting way that would preserve the spirit and flavor of the original. The Mahabharata especially is a case of a good story lost among an overgrown garden of digressions, interruptions, and no few sermons. My motive is that of the storyteller. I’m not trying to prove anything and I have made my own changes to tell the story better. Here are two great stories just waiting for people to read them. Based on the words of ancient songs, I have written books. I tried to make them interesting to read. I don’t think you will find many other books like them.’”
B.A. van Nooten wrote in his Introduction, “The Mahabharata is an Indian epic, in its original Sanskrit probably the largest ever composed. Combined with a second great epic, the Ramayana, it embodies the essence of the Indian cultural heritage. William Buck, a young American whose untimely death at the age of 37 occurred only months after he delivered manuscripts for both epics to the University of California Press in Berkeley, had retold these classics… in a language and at a length that make them available to the contemporary reader.
“The Mahabharata is the story of a dynastic struggle, culminating in an awesome battle between two branches of a single Indian ruling family. The account of the fight between the Kurus and the Pandavas for the fertile and wealthy land at the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges rivers near Delhi is enhanced by peripheral stories that provide a social, moral, and cosmological background to the climatic battle. We do not know exactly when the battle took place. The Mahabharata … was composed over a period of some four hundred years, during the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD, and already at that time the battle was a legendary event, preserved in the folk tales and martial records of the ruling tribes. The Indian calendar places its date at 3102 BC, the beginning of the Age of Misfortune… but more objective evidence, though scanty and inferential, points to a date close to 1400 BC.
“At that time Aryan tribes had just begun to settle in India after their invasion from the Iranian highlands… The tribal communities varied in size and were each governed by the ‘prominent families’… from among which one nobleman was consecrated king. The kings quarreled and engaged in intertribal warfare as a matter of course; their conflicts were sometimes prolonged affairs, sometimes little more than cattle raids.
“It is in this context that the Bharata war took place. The Kurus were an ancient tribe who had long been the rulers of the area of the upper reaches of the Yamuna River. The Pandus, or Pandevas, were a newly emergent clan living… some sixty miles southwest of the Kuru capital… According to the Mahabharata, the new aristocrats were invited to the court of the ancient noble house of Kuru to engage in a gambling contest. There they were tricked first out of their kingdom and then into a promise not to retaliate for twelve years. In the 13th year they took refuge at the court of the Matsyas, where they allied themselves with the Kurus’ eastern and southern neighbors, the Pancalas. Together in a vast host they marched up to [the capital city], where they met on Kuruksetra, the plain of the Kurus. Here the Kurus and their allies were defeated.
“In bare outline that is the story of which the bard sings. But the composer of the Mahabharata has portrayed the actions of the warriors in both a heroic and a moral context, and it should be understood as a re-enactment of a cosmic moral confrontation, not simply as an account of a battle…. The epic bard views the events of the war as prompted by observances and violations of the laws of morality. The basic principle of cosmic or individual existence is dharma. It is the doctrine of the religious and ethical rights and duties of each individual, and refers generally to duty ordained by religion, but may also mean simply virtue, or right conduct. Every human being is expected to live according to his dharma. Violations of dharma results in disaster.” (Pg. xiii-xv)
While purists and scholars may dislike Buck’s interpretation of the story, it is definitely a more appealing approach for the average Western reader.
Displaying 1 of 1 review