Mahābhārata (I)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Attributed (authorship debated)
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~770,000 words · 3,680 passages
Cite this work
- APAMahabharata. (n.d.). The Mahabharata, Vol. I (Books 1-3: Adi, Sabha, Vana) — Ganguli [Mahābhārata (I)]. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/mahabharata/the-mahabharata-vol-i-books-1-3-adi-sabha-vana-ganguli
- MLAMahabharata. The Mahabharata, Vol. I (Books 1-3: Adi, Sabha, Vana) — Ganguli [Mahābhārata (I)]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/mahabharata/the-mahabharata-vol-i-books-1-3-adi-sabha-vana-ganguli.
- ChicagoMahabharata. The Mahabharata, Vol. I (Books 1-3: Adi, Sabha, Vana) — Ganguli [Mahābhārata (I)]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/mahabharata/the-mahabharata-vol-i-books-1-3-adi-sabha-vana-ganguli.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The first third of the Mahabharata: the Adi, Sabha and Vana books — the origin of the two branches of the family, the dice game that sets everything off, and the years of exile in the forest.
Context and history
This is Kisari Mohan Ganguli's prose translation, made between 1883 and 1896: the first complete one into English. For years it appeared with the publisher Pratap Chandra Roy's name on the title page, and some still credit it to him. The poem is the work of no single author and no single age: it grew over centuries, and the tradition itself says it contains everything there is — anyone looking for a continuous narrative will find whole treatises in the way.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
In this world, when it was destitute of brightness and light, and enveloped all around in total darkness, there came into being, as the primal cause of creation, a mighty egg, the one inexhaustible seed of all created beings. It is called Mahadivya, and was formed at the beginning of the Yuga, in which we are told, was the true light Brahma, the eternal one, the wonderful and inconceivable being present alike in all places; the invisible and subtile cause, whose nature partaketh of entity and non-entity. From this egg came out the lord Pitamaha Brahma, the one only Prajapati; with Suraguru and Sthanu. Then appeared the twenty-one Prajapatis, viz., Manu, Vasishtha and Parameshthi; ten Prachetas, Daksha, and the seven sons of Daksha. Then appeared the man of inconceivable nature whom all the Rishis know and so the Viswe-devas, the Adityas, the Vasus, and the twin Aswins; the Yakshas, the Sadhyas, the Pisachas, the Guhyakas, and the Pitris. After these were produced the wise and most holy Brahmarshis, and the numerous Rajarshis distinguished by every noble quality. So the water, the heavens, the earth, the air, the sky, the points of the heavens, the years, the seasons, the months, the fortnights, called Pakshas, with day and night in due succession. And thus were produced all things which are known to mankind. And what is seen in the universe, whether animate or inanimate, of created things, will at the end of the world, and after the expiration of the Yuga, be again confounded. And, at the commencement of other Yugas, all things will be renovated, and, like the various fruits of the earth, succeed each other in the due order of their seasons. Thus continueth perpetually to revolve in the world, without beginning and without end, this wheel which causeth the destruction of all things.