Hindu texts |
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Śruti
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The Mahābhārata (/məhɑːˈbɑːrətə/;[1][2] Sanskrit: महाभारतम्) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics written by saint Vyasa, the other is the Rāmāyaṇa.[3] It was first recited by Vaisampayana, a student of Vyasa, at the Snake Sacrifice in Taxila, Ancient Pakistan.[4][5] It tells of issues between two groups of cousins in the Kurukshetra War. It also tells the fates of the Kaurava and the Pāṇḍava princes and their successors.
The Mahābhārata includes philosophical and devotional material. It has a discussion of the four "goals of life" or puruṣārtha (12.161). The stories in the Mahābhārata include 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 Devyani and the story of Rishyasringa. It also has a shortened version of the Rāmāyaṇa.
The Mahābhārata is normally said to be written by Vyāsa. Most of it was probably put together between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century CE. The oldest parts o it are not much older than around 400 BCE.[6][7] The text probably became in its final form by the early Gupta period (c. 4th century CE).[8][9]
The Mahābhārata is the longest epic poem known. It has been said to be "the longest poem ever written".[10][11] Its longest version has over 100,000 śloka or over 200,000 individual verse lines. It also has and long sections of prose. The Mahābhārata has about 1.8 million words in total. It is about ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, It is about four times the length of the Rāmāyaṇa.[12][13] The importance of the Mahābhārata to world civilization has been compared to that of the Bible, the Quran, the works of Homer, Greek drama, or the works of William Shakespeare.[14] It is sometimes called the fifth Veda.[15] These sections deal with a number of topics such as a number of aspects of Hinduism, Hindu mythology, ethics, and the Hindu way of life. There is also a nineteenth section named Harivamsha. The Bhagavadgita, a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, is a part of the Mahabharata.
Sage Vyasa taught this epic to his son Suka and his students Vaisampayana and others. King Janamejaya, the son of Parikshit and grandson of the heroes of the epic, performed a great sacrifice (yajna). The epic was retold by Vaisampayana to Janamejaya at the advice of Vyasa. Later on, the other sage Suta retold the Mahabharata similar to Vaisampayana to Janamejaya, to Saunaka and others, during a sacrifice performed by Saunaka in Naimisaranya, which is near Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh.