The Mahabharata. One hundred thousand verses. Nearly two million
Words. The longest epic poem in world literature, seven times
Longer than the Iliad and Odyssey combined, four times longer
Than the Bible. A text that India has carried at the center of
Its cultural imagination for two and a half thousand years. A
Text that has been read, recited, performed, adapted, and reinterpreted
In every generation. A text that, more than any other, has shaped
The Hindu moral and religious world. A text, finally, of almost
Unfathomable depth—containing within itself dharma treatises,
Philosophical dialogues, creation myths, hymns, legal codes,
Political theory, love poetry, and—at its absolute center—the
Bhagavad Gita, which has become for Hinduism something like
What the Sermon on the Mount is for Christianity: a densely
Compressed articulation of the tradition's core vision, accessible
In isolation from the larger corpus and yet illuminating it
Entirely. This chapter of the Gaiad will treat the Mahabharata
In the same way the previous chapter treated the Ramayana: as
A singular event in the history of human narrative imagination,
Worthy of extended contemplation, standing at the center of
Indian civilization as Homer stands at the center of Greek
Civilization.
The traditional author is Vyasa—literally "the
Compiler"—a sage who is also a character in the epic itself.
Within the narrative, Vyasa is the biological grandfather of the
Main protagonists: he is the father of Dhritarashtra, Pandu, and
Vidura, whose lines generate the Kauravas and Pandavas whose
Conflict is the epic's central action. Vyasa witnesses the events
He then recounts. This recursive structure—in which the author is
Both teller and participant—is characteristic of the Mahabharata's
Narrative complexity. It is a story that contains stories, that
Reflects on itself, that invites its reader into an endless
Hermeneutic process. Historically, of course, no single author
Produced the Mahabharata. It grew over centuries through multiple
Hands, probably beginning with a shorter core epic in the early
Centuries BCE and expanding through additions and interpolations
Until it reached something like its final form around four-hundred
CE. Its compositional history is as complex as any text in world
Literature. But traditional Hindu attribution gives the work to
Vyasa, and the Gaiad will use this convention for narrative ease.
The core story. The Kuru dynasty, ruling from Hastinapura near
What is now Delhi, is split between two branches of cousins: the
Pandavas, five brothers born to Pandu; and the Kauravas, one
Hundred brothers born to Dhritarashtra. Both groups have legitimate
Claims to the throne—Dhritarashtra was born first but is blind,
Which disqualifies him; Pandu therefore became king but died
Young. Now Dhritarashtra rules as regent for the generation of
Cousins, and tensions escalate between his son Duryodhana (the
Eldest Kaurava) and Yudhishthira (the eldest Pandava). The five
Pandava brothers are Yudhishthira (dharma-embodied, righteous,
The future rightful king), Bhima (enormously strong, impulsive,
Loyal), Arjuna (the greatest archer, a warrior of unmatched
Skill), Nakula and Sahadeva (twins, handsome, skilled in various
Arts). They share a single wife, Draupadi, who is won by
Arjuna in an archery contest and, through an unusual misunderstanding
Involving their mother Kunti, becomes wife to all five brothers.
This polyandrous marriage is one of the most famously anomalous
Features of the Mahabharata—it fits no standard Indian cultural
Pattern, and its presence in the epic has generated endless
Interpretation. The hundred Kauravas, led by Duryodhana, envy
And resent the Pandavas. A series of attempts on Pandava lives
Ensue—a house of lac built to be burned around them, from which
They barely escape; a poisoned sweet; various ambushes. The
Pandavas survive. Then comes the fatal dice game. Duryodhana,
With the aid of his uncle Shakuni, a skilled player with loaded
Dice, invites Yudhishthira to a gambling match. Yudhishthira,
Addicted to dice-play but committed to playing when invited,
Loses everything: his kingdom, his wealth, his brothers' freedom,
His own freedom, and finally Draupadi herself. She is dragged
Into the assembly hall, where the Kauravas attempt to strip her
Publicly—an act of extreme humiliation. At the last moment, the
God Krishna miraculously extends her sari to infinite length
So she cannot be disrobed. Her honor is preserved, but the
Humiliation is never forgotten. Eventually a compromise is reached:
The Pandavas will go into exile for twelve years, plus a
Thirteenth year in which they must remain incognito. If they
Complete this exile successfully, they will recover their kingdom.
They complete it. But Duryodhana refuses to honor the agreement.
He will not give back their kingdom. War becomes inevitable. The
Great Kurukshetra War—the climactic event of the epic—is fought
Between the Pandava and Kaurava coalitions over eighteen days.
Every major ruling house of Indian civilization takes sides. The
Carnage is apocalyptic. By the end, almost every major warrior is
Dead. Duryodhana, mortally wounded, lies dying on the battlefield.
All his brothers are dead. Most of the great teachers and heroes
Are dead. The victorious Pandavas, who have won but at unbearable
Cost, are left to survey a field of corpses that includes their
Uncles, cousins, teachers, friends. Yudhishthira is crowned king.
But the victory is ashes. He reigns for thirty-six years, then
Abdicates and walks with his brothers and Draupadi toward the
Himalayas in a final pilgrimage to death. One by one they fall,
Until only Yudhishthira and a dog that has accompanied them
Reach the peak. The dog, it turns out, is the god of dharma
Testing Yudhishthira. He passes the test by refusing to abandon
The dog. He enters heaven. The epic ends with the soul-wrenching
Final passages in which Yudhishthira faces the moral ambiguity
Of finding Duryodhana in heaven and his virtuous kinsmen
Apparently in hell—a revelation that turns out to be a final test
Of his equanimity. Reality is more complex than moral categories
Allow. The Mahabharata's final word is not triumphant vindication
But sober recognition that righteousness does not guarantee
Happy outcomes and that moral judgments must always be held with
Humility before the complexity of the cosmos. This is a different
Ending from the Ramayana's. The Ramayana ends with restoration;
The Mahabharata ends with ambiguity. Both endings carry deep
Wisdom.
At the center of the epic, just before the battle begins,
Comes the Bhagavad Gita—"the Song of the Lord." Arjuna, looking
Across the battlefield at his cousins, his teachers, his kinsmen,
Is overcome by despair. How can he fight? How can he kill these
People he loves? His grief paralyzes him. He sinks down in his
Chariot, unwilling to fight. His charioteer—who is in fact the god
Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu serving voluntarily as Arjuna's
Driver—engages him in dialogue. Over seven hundred verses,
Krishna instructs Arjuna on the deepest principles of Hindu
Philosophy. The body dies but the soul does not; what Arjuna
Thinks he is killing is only the body, and the soul passes on.
Action in the world is necessary, but it must be performed
Without attachment to the fruits of action—performed as an offering
To Krishna, without grasping for reward or avoiding loss. The
Three paths to liberation are karma yoga (the path of action),
jnana yoga (the path of knowledge), and bhakti yoga (the path of
Devotion); all three are legitimate, and the Gita harmonizes them
Rather than privileging one. Krishna reveals his full divine form
Briefly to Arjuna, a vision so overwhelming that Arjuna can
Barely endure it—the god containing all worlds, all beings, all
Times in himself; devouring warriors past, present, and future;
The source from which all things emerge and to which all things
Return. And Arjuna, after this vision, is restored to action. He
Takes up his bow. The battle begins. This discourse—the Bhagavad Gita—
Is a philosophical and religious text of extraordinary power. It
Has been read and commented on for two millennia. Shankara, Ramanuja,
Madhva, and the other great classical Hindu philosophers each
Wrote major commentaries on it. In the modern period, Gandhi
Carried a copy with him constantly and considered it his spiritual
Guide. Thoreau and Emerson read it with wonder. Oppenheimer
Quoted from it at the first atomic test: "Now I am become Death,
Destroyer of worlds." Its influence on modern religious and
Philosophical thought, within and beyond India, is vast. And yet
It is only one section of the Mahabharata—a small section, perhaps
Two percent of the total. The Mahabharata as a whole is a larger
And more encompassing work. But the Gita is the concentrated
Jewel. Within a few hundred verses, it distills the philosophical
And devotional essence of Hindu thought. Understanding the Gita
Is understanding much about what Indian religious civilization
Has valued.
The Mahabharata treats dharma—righteous duty—
As its central concern. But it treats dharma in a much more
Complicated way than the Ramayana does. The Ramayana's Rama
Embodies dharma with apparent simplicity: he always knows what
The right thing is and does it. The Mahabharata's protagonists
Are not so clear. They face situations in which the right course
Of action is obscure, in which multiple dharmic obligations
Conflict, in which any choice produces some evil. This is called
dharmasankata, "the crisis of dharma," and the Mahabharata is
Full of it. Should Yudhishthira tell a lie that will win the
War? (Krishna urges him to.) Should Arjuna fight his teachers
And kinsmen? (Krishna tells him yes.) Should Karna—who is
Actually a Pandava by birth but was raised among Kauravas—side
With his biological brothers or with the benefactor who raised
Him? (He chooses his benefactor, at tragic cost.) Should Bhishma,
The grand old patriarch of the Kuru dynasty, fight against the
Pandavas whom he loves, because his oath of loyalty requires him
To fight for whoever holds the throne of Hastinapura? (He does,
And is killed by Arjuna.) The Mahabharata is full of such moral
Conundrums. It refuses to give easy answers. It shows dharma as
A genuinely difficult problem, subject to interpretation,
Contextual, and sometimes tragic. This is why it has remained so
Fertile for Indian moral imagination. Every generation finds in
It material for its own ethical reflection. Every commentator
Finds a new angle. Every adaptation brings out different themes.
The text is inexhaustible.
And consider its theology. Krishna,
Who appears as a character throughout the Mahabharata and
Centrally in the Bhagavad Gita, is an avatar of Vishnu—a
Descent of the supreme god into human form to participate in the
Historical drama. He is simultaneously fully human (with emotions,
Relationships, historical specificity) and fully divine (capable
Of miraculous interventions, possessor of cosmic knowledge,
Embodying the absolute). This doctrine of avatar ("descent")
Is one of the central features of Vaishnava Hindu theology.
Vishnu descends to earth periodically when cosmic order (dharma)
Is threatened, to restore balance. Ten major avatars are
Traditionally recognized: the fish (Matsya), the tortoise (Kurma),
The boar (Varaha), the man-lion (Narasimha), the dwarf (Vamana),
Parashurama, Rama (of the Ramayana), Krishna (of the Mahabharata
And separately of the Bhagavata Purana's stories of his childhood),
The Buddha (included here as an avatar, a classic Hindu move to
Absorb Buddhism into the Vaishnava framework), and Kalki (the
Future avatar who will appear at the end of the current dark age).
Each avatar embodies divine engagement with human history. Each
Represents a different form divine action can take. And the avatar
Doctrine has deep structural parallels to the Christian doctrine
Of incarnation, the Buddhist doctrine of bodhisattvas, and other
Religious conceptions of divine beings taking on embodied form for
The sake of sentient beings. These parallels are not identities,
But they are striking resemblances. The Gaiad reads them as
Different cultural elaborations of a common religious insight:
That divinity is not remote from human affairs but engages with
Them in various modes, sometimes taking on the limitations of
Embodied existence in order to be present among creatures.
The
Mahabharata also contains, as subsidiary material, enormous
Amounts of philosophical, religious, and practical content. The
Shanti Parva ("Book of Peace") and the Anushasana Parva ("Book
Of Instruction")—two of the epic's eighteen books—are essentially
Compendia of moral and philosophical teaching delivered by the
Dying Bhishma to Yudhishthira about kingship, dharma, and
The good life. These sections alone are as long as major classical
Indian philosophical texts and contain substantial treatments of
Ethics, political theory, theology, and practical wisdom. The epic
Also preserves numerous side stories, genealogies, creation myths,
Proverbs, hymns. It functions, in part, as an encyclopedia of
Classical Hindu civilization. To know the Mahabharata deeply is
To know much of what traditional India knew about itself.
And the epic remains alive. Indian television produced a serialized
Adaptation in the late nineteen-eighties that was watched by
Hundreds of millions of viewers, grinding the country to a halt
Each Sunday morning. Multiple film versions have been made in
Various Indian languages. Comic books, children's retellings,
Dance performances, theatrical productions in every regional
Tradition—the Mahabharata is constantly being re-made. It is
Not a dead classical text. It is a living cultural substance that
Indians continue to think with, argue about, and return to for
Wisdom. The Bhagavad Gita is, for many Hindus, a daily spiritual
Companion. For all Hindus, the Mahabharata's characters are
Familiar as family members—the dharmic Yudhishthira, the mighty
Bhima, the pure warrior Arjuna, the tragic Karna, the scheming
Shakuni, the proud Duryodhana, the suffering Draupadi, the
Wise Krishna, the oath-bound Bhishma. These figures populate
The moral imagination of Indian civilization as Achilles, Hector,
Odysseus, and Agamemnon populate the moral imagination of the
Classical Mediterranean. Except the Mahabharata's characters are
More psychologically complex, the moral situations more ambiguous,
The philosophical depth greater, the span of narrative time and
Thematic concern vaster. If Homer's Iliad is the foundational
Greek text, the Mahabharata is the Indian equivalent raised to
A higher power. It is not just a great epic. It is the epic of
An entire civilization.
The Gaiad reads the Mahabharata—like
The Ramayana—as another major articulation of the shared
Indo-European narrative imagination, elaborated by the Indian
Branch into a work of singular and unrivaled scope. The Trojan War
Parallel is less direct here than in the Ramayana—there is no
Stolen queen, no siege of a fortified foreign city—but the
Structural parallel with the Iliad is still visible. Two related
Groups of aristocratic warriors, driven by pride and conflicting
Claims, fight an annihilating war that destroys most of the
Aristocratic class. The aftermath is not triumphant but mournful.
Both epics end with death and reflection rather than with
Victorious celebration. The Iliad closes with Priam ransoming
Hector's body; the Mahabharata closes with Yudhishthira's
Pilgrimage of death. Both are, fundamentally, works about the cost
Of heroic warfare and the moral ambiguity of human glory. The
Indo-European imagination produced, at opposite ends of its
Geographical spread, two of the supreme literary meditations on
The price of greatness.
The Mahabharata. Kurukshetra. The
Pandavas and the Kauravas. Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna,
Nakula, Sahadeva. Draupadi. Duryodhana and the hundred brothers.
Bhishma on his bed of arrows. Karna the unrecognized brother.
Krishna the divine charioteer. The Bhagavad Gita at the heart of
The battle. The dharmasankata—the crisis of dharma—woven through
Every decision. The cosmic vision of Krishna's true form.
The hundred thousand verses. The longest poem in the world. The
Epic of an entire civilization.
Mahabharata. Indian reflex of the great Indo-European war epic.
The text that has shaped Hindu moral and religious imagination
For twenty-five hundred years.
Stand.