The Maha-bha-rata is one of the two major Smriti texts and Sanskrit epics of ancient India revered in Hinduism, the other being the Ra-ma-yan.a. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kurukshetra War, a war of succession between two groups of princely cousins, the Kauravas and the panadavas. It also contains philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or purus.a-rtha (12.161). Among the principal works and stories in the Maha-bha-rata are the Bhagavad Gita, the story of Damayanti, the story of Shakuntala, the story of Pururava and Urvashi, the story of Savitri and Satyavan, the story of Kacha and Devayani, the story of Rishyasringa and an abbreviated version of the Ra-ma-yan.a, often considered as works in their own right. Krishna and Arjuna at Kurukshetra, 18th-19th-century painting Traditionally, the authorship of the Maha-bha-rata is attributed to Vya-sa. There have been many attempts to unravel its historical growth and compositional layers. The bulk of the Maha-bha-rata was probably compiled between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century CE, with the oldest preserved parts not much older than around 400 BCE. The text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta period (c. 4th century CE). The Maha-bha-rata is the longest epic poem known and has been described as "the longest poem ever written". Its longest version consists of over 100,000 s'loka or over 200,000 individual verse lines (each shloka is a couplet), and long prose passages. At about 1.8 million words in total, the Maha-bha-rata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, or about four times the length of the Ra-ma-yan.a. Within the Indian tradition it is sometimes called the fifth Veda. The epic is traditionally ascribed to the sage Vyasa, who is also a major figure in the epic. Vyasa described it as being an itihasa (transl. history). He also describes the Guru-shishya tradition, which traces all great teachers and their students of the Vedic times. The first section of the Maha-bha-rata states that it was Ganesha who wrote down the text to Vyasa's dictation, but this is regarded by scholars as a later interpolation to the epic and the "Critical Edition" does not include Ganesha. The epic employs the story within a story structure, otherwise known as frametales, popular in many Indian religious and non-religious works. It is first recited at Takshashila by the sage Vaisampayana, a disciple of Vyasa, to the King Janamejaya who was the great-grandson of the Pandava prince Arjuna. The story is then recited again by a professional storyteller named Ugrashrava Sauti, many years later, to an assemblage of sages performing the 12-year sacrifice for the king Saunaka Kulapati in the Naimisha Forest. The text was described by some early 20th-century Indologists as unstructured and chaotic. Hermann Oldenberg supposed that the original poem must once have carried an immense.
Dr. Mukesh Yadav has been serving as a faculty member in the Department of English Satyawati College, Ashok Vihar, Delhi University since December 2023. The specialization and major areas of interest are Indian writing in English. She has cleared NET/JRF in 2014. She has awarded his Ph.D. 2020. She has published 10 research papers in National or International journals. She has attended national and international seminars and conferences. She has supervised the research dissertations of the students. She has 10 years teaching experience as an Assistant Professor.
CHARACTERS OF MAHABHARATA This book contains philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or purus.a-rtha. This book attempts to unravel historical growth and compositional layers also, compiled between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century CE. The text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta period (c. 4th century CE). This book ascribed to the sage Vyasa, who is also a major figure in the epic. It also describes the Guru-shishya tradition, which traces all great teachers and their students of the Vedic times. The epic employs the story within a story structure. The story is then recited again by a professional storyteller named Ugrashrava Sauti, many years later, to an assemblage of sages performing the 12-year sacrifice for the king Saunaka Kulapati in the Naimisha Forest.
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