It contains a listing of the names of the characters, a list of the alternative names of the main characters, and an index to the passages in Narasimhan's source texts the Critical Edition of Pune for Books One through Eight, the P. Roy edition for Books Nine through Eighteen. Doctrines and Contexts by Angelika Malinar Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Harper and Row, Publishers, This version reproduces many of the small, symbolic details of the original and thus requires closer attention than a broader retelling, but that fact also makes it an interesting, ambitious attempt to represent the significance of the epic beyond its surface narrative.

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Can this destruction be avoided? The Critical Edition of the Sanskrit Text: Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, , edited by V. A massive editorial project which recorded the readings of hundreds of manuscripts and other forms of testimony from all over the Indian sub-continent and Indonesia. Begun in at the Bhandarkar Institute in Pune, Maharashtra, this edition was fundamentally shaped and guided by Sukthankar, who laid out his editorial map in his brilliant Prolegomena to the first volume of the edition.

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The project was controversial from the beginning: These scholars judge the Pune text to be an unwarranted simplification of the tradition that has produced an artificial text that never existed for anyone at any time in the past. At the same time the Pune edition though only in its complete version, that is, with its full apparatus makes available not only the editorially determined critical text, but all the variants to that text and all the passages that were judged to be additions to the putative original text.

Fitzgerald, translated by van Buitenen, Fitzgerald, and others. Ten volumes are projected, four volumes have been published. Van Buitenen translated the first three volumes, comprising the first five major books of the epic Chicago: There are brief glossaries of the names of characters and other ancillary appendices, and each volume contains an index of names. Gary Tubb of the University of Chicago has begun work on the very large Seventh Book of the epic, which details many dramatic episodes of days eleven through fifteen volume 5 of the series.

While Arjuna treks to heaven to obtain knowledge of weapons and dance from Indra, Yudhishtra is educated on dharma by a host of learned men, primary among them being sage Markandeya. This is also the volume with several famous tales that have been part of Hindu culture for millennia. From the Aranyaka Parva, the third parva in the eighteen-parva classification, this volume contains chapters 33 through 44, chapter 33 being the "Tirtha Yatra" parva, and chapter 44 being the "Araneya" parva within the parva classification.

The very first parva, "Tirtha Yatra" is a massive adhyaya, clocking in at 2, shlokas. It is by far the longest parva in the epic so far. However, there seems to be some anomaly when adding up the shlokas in the Teertha Parva. The table in the Introduction states the Tirtha Parva as having shlokas, while page 1, where the Tirtha Parva starts, states that it has shlokas. Arjuna has gone to the heavens in search of divine weapons that the Pandavas know they will need to get their kingdom back.

The remaining Pandavas are missing Arjuna terribly.

Books on Mahabharata

The sage Narada comes visiting, and Yudhishtra asks him to expound on the merits "obtained by someone who circles the earth and visits all the tirthas". The sage asks the Pandavas to listen in turn to what rishi Pulastya had told Bhishma in response to the same question. Thus begins Tirtha Parva. While we have been told in some detail the importance of Kurukshetra in Vol 1, in the Adi Parva, this parva contains more details on the holiness of Kurukshetra as a tirtha.

Even the dust carried away by the winds in Kurukshetra takes the performer of evil acts to the supreme objective. Those who live in Kurukshetra live in heaven, "I will go to Kurukshetra, I will live in Kurukshetra," He who utters this single sentence is cleansed of all sins. The story of Ganga, and how the ashes of the sons of King Sagara were immersed in the Ganga is then recounted starting with adhyaya of the Aranyaka Parva. We then get to hear about sage Rishabha, sage Kashyap's son Rishyashringa, who was born as the son of a deer, sage Jamadagni, his wife Renuka, and their fifth son Parshurama.

The story of Sage Chyavana and Sukanya, which is also available as an Amar Chitra Katha, is recounted in chapter and The story of King Somaka and his lone son Jantu is heart-rending in some ways. A line from that adhyaya is worth repeating here: Dharma replied, 'O King! No one ever obtains the fruits of someone else's action. Chapters onwards the story of Ashtavakra is recited. Chapter contains the famous debate between Ashtavakra and Bandi.

You could read that adhyaya again and again, such is the cascading crescendo of the debate between the learned sage and the twelve-year old Ashtavakra. There is a considerable amount of space devoted to Bhima's travels towards the Gandhamadana mountains and his meeting with his half-brother, Hanuman. It is only in chapter that we see Arjuna return after completing his stay in the heavens. Ajgara Parva is somewhat similar to Araneya parva. In both, it is Yudhishtra's knowledge of dharma that saves his brothers.

One can also interpret these parvas in different manner. While it was Yudhishtra's love of gambling that saw him lose his kingdom, his brothers, and his wife, in gambling to Shakuni, it is recently acquired knowledge from the sages in the forest that sees him redeeming himself and saving his brothers. From the Ajgara Parva, there are a few lines that bear repeating, if only to highlight what Yudhishtra has to say about who is learned and who is not; in other words, who is a brahman and who is not.

Yudhishtra replied, "If these traits, not even found in a brahmana, are seen in a shudra, he is not a shudra. A brahmana in whom a brahmana's traits are not found, is a shudra.

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Putting it in even simpler words, one is noble or not based on actions. Karma is prime; birth is not. Yudhishtra asks, "O serpent!

Between generosity and truthfulness, which is seen to be superior? Between non-violence and good conduct, which is superior and which is inferior" 'The serpent replied, "The superiority or inferiority of generosity versus truthfulness or non-violence vis-a-vis good conduct is determined by whether the effects of these deeds are more or less important.

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This parva, Ajgara Parva, is profound in itself and bears resemblance to some of the principal Upanishads themselves. There is yet another fascinating episode, where the sage Markandeya, tells the Pandavas the story of the sage Koushika, who, on being berated by the wife of a householder as not being conversant with the true meaning of dharma, left for the city of Mithila, where a hunter, who bought and sold meat, enlightens the sage on dharma.

Yet another reminder of how it is our deeds that define who we are, and not where we are or how we were born. There is an passage where the hunter tries to disabuse sage Koushika of the notions of ahimsa violence by saying: But it has been said that there is great violence in this. Ploughing kills many beings that lie inside the ground and many other hundreds of beings.


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What is your view on this? Man hunts, kills and eats animals. They also cut trees and herbs. There are many living beings in trees and fruit.

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There are many in water too. Everything is full of life and living beings. Fish eat fish, What is your view on this? O supreme among brahmanas! Beings live on other beings. But in this world, who does not injure living beings? Bibek Debroy, the translator, is an economist with a difference. Well, let's just say different. In the early s, while at the Presidency College in Kolkata, the author wrote a paper where he did a "statistical test on the frequency with which the five Pandavas used various weapons in the Kurukshetra war.

While his interest in the Mahabharata "remained, I got sidetracked into translating. Through the s, there were abdridged translations of the Maha Puranas, the Vedas and the eleven major Upanishads. The entire series is expected to run into ten volumes, and so far, at the time of my writing this review of the third volume, four volumes have been released, with each volume appearing roughly every six months, the most recent one, Vol.


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