Selections from the Mahabharata

This book presents the social message of the Mahabharata in the form of a ten-point call for the good of all. Since this message is primarily given, in the terminology of lokasamgraha, in Bhagavad-Gita (which is the centre-piece of the Mahabharata), the technique of presentation adopted here is Gita-supportive, i.e. indirect as well as selective. A selective approach is inevitable because the Mahabharata as a whole is like an ocean which is capable of yielding several variants of the same message. Our selections from the Mahabharata (i.e. the epic excluding Bhagavad-Gita), presented in Sanskrit but accompanied with simple meaning in English, take the form of eighteen chapters (containing a total of 700 verses), and thus can be viewed as a ‘second Gita’ (because Bhagavad-Gita itself has 700 verses spread our eighteen chapters). Although the lokasamgraha message is valid for all times, it deserves a more pointed attention now, because a Mahabharata – like situation has suddenly been created in the world due to the terrorist attacks that took place in USA on 11 September 2001, and in India on 13 December 2001. The ten-point call for good of all, as articulated in this book, is inspired by (and hopefully will itself inspire) a firm conviction that all the karmayogins of the world will work together to bring about a terror-free society, which is a basic component of lokasamgraha.