The Mahabharata
Authors: R. K. Narayan
PENGUIN BOOKS
The Mahabharata
R. K. Narayan was born in Madras, South India, and educated there and at Maharaja's College in Mysore. His first novel,
Swami and Friends
(1935), and its successor,
The Bachelor of Arts
(1937), are both set in the enchanting fictional territory of Malgudi. Other âMalgudi' novels are
The Dark Room
(1938),
The English Teacher
(1945),
Mr Sampath
(1949),
The Financial Expert
(1952),
Waiting for the Mahatma
(1955),
The Man-Eater of Malgudi
(1961),
The Vendor of Sweets
(1967),
The Painter of Signs
(1976),
A Tiger for Malgudi
(1983) and
Talkative Man
(1986). His novel
The Guide
(1958) won him the National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy, his country's highest honour. As well as five collections of short stories,
A Horse and Two Goats
,
An Astrologer
'
s Day, Lawley Road, Malgudi Days
and
Under the Banyan Tree
, he has published two travel books,
My Dateless Diary
and
The Emerald Route
; four volumes of essays,
Next Sunday, Reluctant Guru, A Story-Teller's World
and
A Writer's Nightmare;
the retold legends
Gods, Demons and Others, The Ramayana
and
The Mahabharata;
a volume of memoirs,
My Days;
and, most recently, a collection of three novellas,
The Grandmother's Tale.
In 1980 he was awarded the A. C. Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature and in 1981 he was made an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Many of his books are published in Penguin.
A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic
by R.K.Narayan
WITH DECORATIONS BY R.K.LAXMAN
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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This translation first published in the USA by The Viking Press 1978
First published in Great Britain in Penguin Classics 2001
1
Copyright © R. K. Narayan, 1978
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
EISBN: 978â0â141â19081â5
List of Characters and Places of Action in the Story
T
HE ORIGINAL COMPOSITION
in the Sanskrit language runs to one hundred thousand stanzas in verse, thus making it the longest composition in the world: in sheer quantity eight times longer than
The Iliad
and
The Odyssey
put together. A great deal of scholarly research, based on internal evidence, cross references, and astronomical data occurring incidentally in the texts, has gone on for years in order to reach a conclusion in regard to the authorship and date of this epic. There can, however, be no such thing as a final statement on the subject. However, a few salient points have emerged from all the research.
The nucleus of the story in some form, perhaps a ballad, was known in 1500
B.C.
The tension between two branches of a ruling family of the warrior caste, the ups and downs in their fortunes, and a mighty battle that ensued to settle the question of supremacy were familiar facts long before the Christian Era. The geographical locations, such as Hastinapura and Kurukshetra, are still extant in the northernmost part of India. Commemorative festivals are still being celebrated there in certain seasons, associated with the characters in the tale. “The Pandavas were exiled here⦠” or “⦠lived in these forests⦠” and so forth.
This tale of heroism, persecution, and intrigue must have passed into ballads or similar modes of popular entertainment. Out of these the first version of the epic was composed, consisting of twenty-four thousand stanzas, the authorship being attributed to Vyasa. Now, once again, speculation and doubt begins to grow around the name “Vyasa”. While ninety-nine percent of our public would
accept the name and venerate him without question as an immortal, inspired sage, research-minded scholars have their own doubts and speculations. They explain that “Vyasa” could be a generic title, and that there could have been at different stages of the epic's life several others who must have assumed the name for the purpose of composition. Speaking for myself, I would rather accept the traditional accounts. The conclusions of cold, factual research seem like “catching the rainbow with one's fingers,” to quote a line from the epic itself.
Vyasa's epic was originally entitled
Jaya
, which means triumph or victory. When the vision of it came to him through the grace of Brahma, the Creator, Vyasa needed someone to take it down as he recited it. Ganesha, the god with an elephant head, accepted the assignment on one conditionâthat there should be no pause in the dictation. The author accepted this condition, provided that Ganesha realized and understood the meaning of every word before putting it down in writing.
Vyasa kept up his dictation at a breathless speed, and Ganesha took it down with matching zest. When, at one point, his stylus failed, he broke off one of his tusks and continued the writing. The composer, whenever he found his amanuensis outrunning him, checked his speed by composing, here and there, passagesâterse, packed and concentratedâwhich would force him to pause to get at the meaning. There are thus several passages in
The Mahabharata
which convey layers of meaning depending upon the stress and syllabification while reciting them aloud.
Jaya
became
Bharata
at the next stage, when Vysampayana, who had listened to the original narrative from Vyasa himself, conveyed it to an assembly of listeners at the court of Janamejaya. The work acquired considerable volume at this stage, swollen to about fifty thousand stanzas.
Much later, it was narrated again at another assembly of sages in a forest, this time by one Sauti, who had heard it at Janamejaya's court.
Sauti is a great traveller and arrives at the ashram of a sage named Saunaka, set in deep woods, where a number of sages are gathered reposefully after a prolonged performance of certain rites and sacrifices for the welfare of humanity. While they are resting thus, Sauti walks inâa wayfarer. As prescribed by the code of hospitality, the sages offer him shelter and rest, and seat him comfortably. When the formalities are over, and when they feel certain that their guest has rested and overcome the fatigue of travel, they ask, “O guest, where are you coming from? What strange and rare experiences have you undergone and what places and men have you seen?”
Sauti answers, “I visited the holy land of Kurukshetra where was fought the eighteen-day war between the Pandavas and their cousins, the Kauravas, and where the ground was washed in blood. I visited it after I had heard the tale narrated by Vysampayana at the great Serpent Sacrifice
*
performed at Janamejaya's court.” And Sauti's narrative acquired further quantity and quality at this stage.
At other unspecified times, additions were made by each narrator. Episodes, philosophies, and moral lessons were added until the epic came to its present length of one hundred thousand stanzas. In this form, about
A.D.
400, it came to be known as
The Mahabharata, maha
being a prefix indicating greatness.
Scholars have worked hard to identify the recensions, alterations, and additions, and definitive editions are available indicating the changes from the original versions. It is a controversial field, but the main story is accepted on all hands and beyond all argument: once upon a time in ancient Hastinapura lived a royal familyâwith five brothers of divine origin on one side, and their one hundred cousins on the other, at war with each other. This framework is filled with details and lines of the finest poetic values in Sanskrit. Of its literary and other values, here is a summary as the author himself declared it:
When Vyasa had the epic all complete in his mind, he invoked Brahma, the Creator, and explained, “I have composed a poem which is vast. Therein are revealed the mystery and the subtleties of the Vedas and Upanishads; descriptions of creeds and modes of life; the history of past, present, and future; rules for the four castes; the essence of the Puranas, of asceticism, and rules for the acolyte; the dimensions of the sun, moon, and stars; a description of the four yugas; a definition of charity, the subject of the incarnation of souls for specific purposes; the sciences and the healing of sickness; also a description of places of pilgrimage, of rivers, mountains, and forests, and of heavenly cities and palaces; the art of war; descriptions of different nations, their languages, and their qualities; and of the all-pervading universal spirit.” And at this stage Brahma said, “Call on Ganesha. He is the one fittest to take down your poem as you recite it.”
The Mahabharata
consists of eighteen parvas (or parts), as many volumes by the present measure of production. Being a work dependent on oral report, there is naturally much repetition, perhaps for the benefit of a listener who might have missed a piece, as the narration goes on day after day. In this method of narrative a character reporting elsewhere on a situation which the reader already knows, gives again a complete account to his listener. The epic form is detailed
and leisurely, and the technique of narration is different from what we are used to. There is an unhurrying quality about it which gives it stature. To point a moral, a complete, independent story of great length and detail may be included, a deviation from the mainstream which can run to several hundred pages. Thus, we have in
The Mahabharata
the well-known legends such as Harischandra, Nala, and Savitri, Yayati, Draupadi (presented here in an adapted form), Shakuntala, and Sibi, which are included in my previous book,
Gods, Demons, and Others.
Another factor which swells
The Mahabharata
is philosophic discussionâdiscourses on life and conduct which one or another of the sages expoundsâsometimes running to several hundred lines at a time.
The Bhagavad Gita
is an instance of such a situation. When the opposing armies are ready to attack each other, Krishna reveals and elaborates (in eighteen chapters) the
Gita
philosophy.
