The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Translated into English Prose Adi Parva by Kisari Mohan Ganguli SECTION I Om! Having bowed down to Narayana and Nara, the most exalted male being, and also to the goddess Saraswati, must the word Jaya be uttered. Ugrasrava, the son of Lomaharshana, surnamed Sauti, well-versed in the Puranas, bending with humility, one day approached the great sages of rigid vows, sitting at their ease, who had attended the twelve years' sacrifice of Saunaka, surnamed Kulapati, in the forest of Naimisha. Those ascetics, wishing to hear his wonderful narrations, presently began to address him who had thus arrived at that recluse abode of the inhabitants of the forest of Naimisha. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.
The present book is a translation of original Mahabharata written by Vyasa in sanskrit prose. This translation has been carried out in the form of prose in the English language.
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is an epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kauravas and the Pandava princes as well as containing philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four goals of life. Here we have Drona Parva, the seventh, is the major book of the Kurukshetra war with Drona as commander. The narration is on most of the great warriors who served on respectively to the Kauravas and the Pandavas in the battle. Drona or Dronacharya is portrayed as the royal guru to the Kauravas and the Pandavas. He was skilled in advanced military arts. Vyasa is a revered figure in Hindu traditions. He is a kala-Avatar or part-incarnation of God Vishnu. Vyasa is sometimes conflated by some Vaishnavas with Badarayana, the compiler of the Vedanta Sutras and considered to be one of the seven Chiranjivins. He is also the fourth member of the Rishi Parampara of the Advaita Guru Parampar of which Adi Shankara is the chief proponent.
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is an epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kauravas and the Pandava princes as well as containing philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four goals of life. Here we have Karna Parva, the eighth, in which the battle continues with Karna as commander. Vyasa is a revered figure in Hindu traditions. He is a kala-Avatar or part-incarnation of God Vishnu. Vyasa is sometimes conflated by some Vaishnavas with Badarayana, the compiler of the Vedanta Sutras and considered to be one of the seven Chiranjivins. He is also the fourth member of the Rishi Parampara of the Advaita Guru Parampar of which Adi Shankara is the chief proponent.
“Bhishma,” the sixth book of the eighteen-book epic The Maha•bhárata, narrates the first ten days of the great war between the Káuravas and the Pándavas. This first volume covers four days from the beginning of the great battle and includes the famous “Bhágavad•gita (“The Song of the Lord”), presented here within its original epic context. In this “bible” of Indian civilization the charioteer Krishna empowers his disciple Árjuna to resolve his personal dilemma: whether to follow his righteous duty as a warrior and slay his opponent relatives in the just battle, or to abstain from fighting and renounce the warrior code to which he is born.
ABOUT THE MAHABHARATA The Mahabharata is the greatest epic of India, and arguably the greatest epic of any country. It is well known for including the Bhagavad Gita, an important scripture that has influenced great thinkers like Gandhi, Aldous Huxley, Thoreau, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Jung, and Herman Hesse. However, the Gita represents only 700 verses out of 200,000 total in this epic. In addition to its philosophical chapters, the Mahabharata is a great work of imagination and adventure. When you read it you will be transported to a world where demigods and goddesses sport with men and women. A beautiful girl can take birth from the belly of a fish. A prince might get a wife from archery competitions or kidnapping. And God Himself (Krishna) might be your best friend. There is no other book like it. ABOUT THIS EDITION Anyone who has studied the Bhagavad Gita must be interested in reading the whole book. When I was a Hare Krishna devotee I certainly wished I could do that. Several summaries of the Mahabharata exist, but it is impossible to condense eighteen books into one without omitting anything worthwhile. The onlycomplete English translation of the book is this one, by Kisari Mohan Ganguli. These volumes are based on a text file scanned at sacred-texts.com. If you have a Kindle you can read this translation without cost by downloading it from http://www.gutenberg.org/. Amazon.com also has their own versions of these books which you may download for free from the Kindle Store. While reading these free e-books I decided that I really wanted a bound and printed version. The books have thousands of footnotes, which doesn't work well in e-book format. While this translation is still in print, every existing edition leaves something to be desired. When I was in the Hare Krishnas I owned a complete set of their books, and they were the most beautiful books you can imagine. I wanted to have an edition of the complete Mahabharata that was worthy to share the same book case as those books, so I decided to prepare a newedition using Create Space and offer it for sale at the lowest possible price. Each volume in this edition represents many hours of work. I have moved the footnotes in these volumes (again, thousands of them) from the end of the book back to the bottoms of the pages for easier reading. I have replaced archaic words like "behoveth" with "behooves", etc., where it was possible to do so without rewriting the sentences where they appear. I have also fixed hundreds of variant spellings, and replaced obscure words like "welkins" and "horripliated" with more common ones. Finally, the original work didnot translate the titles of the individual books, so I have used the names found on Wikipedia. Thus Adi Parva in the original becomes The Book Of The Beginning. The illustrations are from a Hindi translation of the Mahabharata that has also fallen into the public domain. (http://openlibrary.org/books/OL23365037M/Mahabharata.) I have used page images provided at archive.org and have cleaned them up using The GIMP software. Theresults speak for themselves. When all the volumes are published there will be nearly 300 full page illustrations. In short, I have spared no effort to make this the most complete, most readable, and most attractive edition of the Mahabharata in English. While I no longer practice the Vaishnava religion I hope that these books will meet with the approval of my former godbrothers and godsisters. I do not believe that they will find anything offensive in them. BHAKTA JIM
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is an epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kauravas and the Pandava princes as well as containing philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four goals of life. Here we have Stri Parva, the eleventh, takes place after the end of Kurukshetra War when the widows of the dead soldiers visit the battlefield. It also shows Dhritarashtra, king of Hastinapur, lamenting over the death of his one hundred sons. Vyasa is a revered figure in Hindu traditions. He is a kala-Avatar or part-incarnation of God Vishnu. Vyasa is sometimes conflated by some Vaishnavas with Badarayana, the compiler of the Vedanta Sutras and considered to be one of the seven Chiranjivins. He is also the fourth member of the Rishi Parampara of the Advaita Guru Parampar of which Adi Shankara is the chief proponent.
The Bhagavad Gita, or the song of God, was revealed by Lord Shree Krishna to Arjun on the threshold of the epic war of Mahabharata. A decisive battle between two sets of cousins, the Kauravas and the Pandavas, was just about to commence on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. A detailed account of the reasons that led to such a colossal war is given under Introduction-The Setting of the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita is primarily a conversation between Lord Shree Krishna and Arjun. Yet, the first chapter begins with a dialogue between King Dhritarashtra and his minister Sanjay. Dhritarashtra being blind, could not leave his palace in Hastinapur but was eager to know the ongoings of the battlefield. Sanjay was a disciple of Sage Ved Vyas, the author of the epic Mahabharata and several other Hindu scriptures. Sage Ved Vyas possessed a mystic ability to see and hear events occurring in distant places. He had bestowed upon Sanjay the miraculous power of distant vision. Therefore, Sanjay could see and hear what transpired on the battleground of Kurukshetra, and gave a first-hand account to King Dhritarashtra, while still being in his palace.
