Light rays from the Mahabharata I am really happy to see that K. T. Narayanan the author of published books like Ramayana for children and Mahabhara-takatha in Malayalam is now bringing out a book "Mahabhar-athakatha' in English that too based on the stories of Mahab-harata. It is to be noted that the famous epic Mahabharata was originally written in the language of Sanskrit by Lord Ganesha. the scribe, as dictated by Maharshi Vedavyasa. Now a glimpse at the great Sage Vedavyasa and his monumental work Mahab-harata will help the readers to get a better insight to this book Mahabharathakatha. The great Sage Vedavyasa is well known to the lovers of lit-erature, culture and Indian heritage for having made substantial contributions to knowledge. He wrote the 18 Puranas includ-ing the Srimad Bhagavata, the Bramhmasutras, the Harivamsa, the Adhyatma Ramayana, the Vyasa Ramayana, commentary to the Yogasutras of Patanjali in addition to the Mahabharata that contains Srimad Bhavad Gita. He edited the Vedas into four. He is also known as Badarayana and is recognised as the founder of Uttaramimamsa or Vedanta. He is the son of Parasara Ma-harshi and Satyavati a beautiful fisherman lady. Vyasa was like his mother in appearance and hence was called Krishna (Attrac-tive/blackish in colour). His connection with Dvipu or island brought him the name Dvaipayana. Maharshi Vyasa is supposed to be a Chiranjeevi (Who lives for ever). In short this great Sage can thus be seen to be beyond the powers and limitations of the human mind/ intellect. His excellent and voluminous literary contributions too live beyond time space limitations.
The Mahabharata of Vyasa is the earliest representative of the Ithihasapurana class where as the Ramayana of Valmiki as the oldest representative of the Kavyas. Mahabharata with 18 Parvas is seen to be an encyclopedia of moral teachings than a single epic poem. Hence it is said only whatever is there in this work connected with Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha is found in other pieces of literature and whatever is not there in this work can not be found else where.
Poets, dramatists and other writers of almost all languages have utilised the resourceful Mahabharata as the sources of their literary creations. Many valuable commentaries have come out for this invaluable work. The commentary written by a Mahar-ashtra Brahmin Neelakanta of the 16th century is taken as the best and complete- observes T. K. Ramachandra Iyer in his book A short history of Sanskrit literature'. He points out that Sarvj-nanarayana is considered as the earliest commentator of the Ma-habharata. According to Prof. Macdonell the Mahabharata has developed through 3 stages with 8000, 24000 and one lakh vers-es respectively. The episodes like Nala and Damayanti found in the Mahabharata is seen made use of by many later poets in their works. The Nalacampu of Trivikramabhatta (10th century AD), the Naishadheeya Charita of Sriharsha (12th century AD), the Nalacharitanataka of Neelakanta Dikshita (17th century AD) etc. are some of them. The well known works like the Sakuntala of Kalidasa, the Venisamhara of Bhattanarayana, the Kiratarjuneeya of Magha are found to be based on the stories of Mahabharata.
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