Mahābhārata (IV)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Attributed (authorship debated)
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~520,000 words · 2,486 passages
Cite this work
- APAMahabharata. (n.d.). Mahābhārata (IV). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/mahabharata/the-mahabharata-vol-iv-books-13-18-ganguli
- MLAMahabharata. "Mahābhārata (IV)." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/mahabharata/the-mahabharata-vol-iv-books-13-18-ganguli.
- ChicagoMahabharata. Mahābhārata (IV). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/mahabharata/the-mahabharata-vol-iv-books-13-18-ganguli.
What it is about
The last six books: the continuation of Bhishma's instructions, the horse sacrifice, the withdrawal of the elders to the forest, the ruin of Krishna's clan, and the final road to the mountain.
Context and history
The poem does not end with victory but with the winding up of it: the victors are left alone, Krishna's own people destroy themselves in a drunken brawl, and Yudhishthira climbs the mountain to die, followed by a dog that refuses to leave him. The episode of the dog is the ending the tradition remembers best, and it reads as the poem's verdict on everything it has told. Ganguli's translation, 1883-1896.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Translated into English Prose from the Original Sanskrit Text by Kisari Mohan Ganguli [1883-1896] Scanned at sacred-texts.com, 2005. Proofed by John Bruno Hare, January 2005. THE MAHABHARATA ANUSASANA PARVA PART I SECTION I (Anusasanika Parva) OM! HAVING BOWED down unto Narayana, and Nara the foremost of male beings, and unto the goddess Saraswati, must the word Jaya be uttered. "'Yudhishthira said, "O grandsire, tranquillity of mind has been said to be subtile and of diverse forms. I have heard all thy discourses, but still tranquillity of mind has not been mine. In this matter, various means of quieting the mind have been related (by thee), O sire, but how can peace of mind be secured from only a knowledge of the different kinds of tranquillity, when I myself have been the instrument of bringing about all this? Beholding thy body covered with arrows and festering with bad sores, I fail to find, O hero, any peace of mind, at the thought of the evils I have wrought. Beholding thy body, O most valiant of men, bathed in blood, like a hill overrun with water from its springs, I am languishing with grief even as the lotus in the rainy season. What can be more painful than this, that thou, O grandsire, hast been brought to this plight on my account by my people fighting against their foes on the battle-field? Other princes also, with their sons and kinsmen, having met with destruction on my account, alas, what can be more painful than this. Tell us, O prince, what destiny awaits us and the sons of Dhritarashtra, who, driven by fate and anger, have done this abhorrent act. O lord of men, I think the son of Dhritarashtra is fortunate in that he doth not behold thee in this state. But I, who am the cause of thy death as well as of that of our friends, am denied all peace of mind by beholding thee
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