Mahabharata
142 books
Dispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins—the Pandavas and the Kouravas—but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters face them with no clear indications of what is right and what is wrong; there are no absolute answers. Thus every possible human emotion features in The Mahabharata, the reason the epic ...
To the faithful, everything mentioned in the Mahabharata is true to the very letter, whereas the skeptic holds that the epic is nothing more than a mere figment of imagination. How, then, can one ascertain the truth? It is here that archaeology comes to our rescue.
In 1951-52, Professor B.B. Lal excavated the key-site of Hastinapura, situated on the bank of the Ganga, in Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh. Over here he encountered in the lower levels a settlement ...
Stri is a study of bronze-age femininity as portrayed in the Mahabharata. It focuses on the roles of wife, daughter-in-law, and mother, and also on the kinship groups. McGrath examines marriage systems and patterns of courtship as well as showing how different stages in a woman's life are depicted by this epic. He carefully demonstrates that the voice of women during pre-classical times was crucial for sustaining and maintaining dharma in society and he shows how ...
The Mahabharata is a rich mine of philosophical speculations and the source of many inchoate systems of philosophy. As an encyclopaedia of Indian culture, it has accommodated the important thought ferments of that period. If philosophy is a reflection upon varieties of human experience, or rational, methodological and systematic consideration of these topics which are of great concern to man, the great epic, the Mahabharata is really a book of philosophy. Its ...
The essays focus on the themes of sub-version and some relatively obscure areas of the long and fascinating journey of the great Indian epic.
The book is a critical appraisal of the events in the Mahabharata as also of the acts and policies of the principal characters and others with special emphasis on the role of secret agents. The kings and the wise men of those days were fully conversant with the importance of the timely information to thwart the evil designs of the enemies. Secret agents were described as the eyes and ears of the rulers.During the devastating 18 day Mahabharata war collection of ...
High above the sky stands Swarga, paradise, abode of the gods. Still above is Vaikuntha, heaven, abode of God.The doorkeepers of Vaikuntha are the twins, Jaya and Vijaya, both whose names mean ‘victory’. One keeps you in Swarga; the other raises you into Vaikuntha. In Vaikuntha there is bliss forever, in Swarga there is pleasure for only as long as you deserve.What is the difference between Jaya and Vijaya? Solve this puzzle and you will solve the ...
The Mahabharata is one of the greatest stories ever told. Though the basic plot is widely known, there is much more to the epic than the dispute between Kouravas and Pandava that led to the battle in Kurukshetra. It has innumerable sub-plots that accommodate fascinating meanderings and digressions, and it has rarely been translated in full, given its formidable length of 80,000 shlokas or couplets. The magnificent 10-volume unabridged translation of the epic is ...
Comprehensive, authoritative, and up-to-date, this three-volume Encyclopaedia covers the story of music spread across 2000 years. From entries on classical, folk, film, and other forms of music to details of all forms of dance, raga, tala, gharana, treatises, technical terms, and instruments as well as short biographies of vocalists, musicologists, saint poets, gurus, composers, and instrumentalistsnullthe range and breadth of the Encyclopaedia is immense. With ...
The Book introduces us to some major and minor characters in the great Epics – the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The author has been very selective in the process, highlighting their excellent qualities of the head and the heart as well as their exceptional achievements. These characters, by dint of excellence in moral values, have universal appeal, being devoid of sectarian or dogmatic notions.The author lays great stress on authenticity and ...
By the middle of the first millennium BC, the northern part of the Indian subcontinent had largely fallen under the political control of a people who had spread widely over the region from the West, and who were now well advanced in the process of establishing kingdoms centered round major towns. As they spread they carried their language (Sanskrit) and their distinctive culture with them. This was a culture that had already produced a substantial corpus of texts ...
The literal meaning of the Sanskrit word "Apaddharma" is "dharma appropriate at the time of calamity". The Mahabharata's use of this expression implies that, in the opinion of the author of this epic, the traditional varnashramadharma would not prove to be strong enough to protect the society, if and when there is a calamity. Therefore, Vedic scholars ought to have welcomed the messages of Apad-dharma when the society was actually attacked ...
The Mahabharata is one of the greatest stories ever told. Though the basic plot is widely known, there is much more to the epic than the dispute between the Kouravas and Pandavas that led to the battle in Kurukshetra. It has innumerable sub-plots that accommodate fascinating meanderings and digressions, and it has rarely been translated in full, given its formidable length of 80,000 shlokas or couplets.The Mahabharata is one of the greatest stories ever told. ...
The book has 68 chapters (5147 verses) consisting of twenty-two episodes, many of which contain very interesting sub-tales. The text is overwhelmingly martial It contains the adventures of the horse passing throught various kingdoms. Some kings seized the horse and fought with the escort while some let it pass. Jaimini's composition is also lavishly soaked in bhakti. It is a good example of the blend of the two rasas, bhakti and vira, where even the violence, the ...
