Ten Things to Know about The Mahabharata: #10
The Mahabharata (ma-ha-BHA-ra-tha) is often called India’s national epic. Enter its mythic world of semi-divine heroes and the forces of destiny with this illustrated primer.
10. It’s more than a war story. True, it’s about five brothers who fight an epic battle against their cousins to regain their kingdom. And it’s not short on action. Uberbuff Bhima rips trees out of their sockets; the handsome Arjuna can shoot an arrow through five rings by looking at their reflection. Retelling the Sanskrit epic in comic book form isn’t much of a stretch.
What you don’t get from a plot summary of the Mahabharata is a sense of its texture. Bulking up the poem of 90,000 verses are fables, genealogies, philosophy and prayer.
An unabridged version — if you are so fearless as to try one — contains the Bhagavad Gita, a famous treatise on ethics and a book in its own right. (The god Krishna tells it to the hero Arjuna when he asks why he must fight.) A common Hindu prayer, the thousand names of Vishnu, is first recited on the battlefield by a dying warrior.
Fairy tale fans will be sure to find familiar motifs in the stories of Sakuntula and a magic ring, and of Damayanti, who learns about her true love from a swan.
These and countless subplots put the maha (“great”) in Mahabharata. Which leads to#9…
