Even when the project of the Critical Edition of the Mahabharata had been first mooted by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, nearly fifty years ago, it was decided that the Critical Edition would comprise not only the eighteen Parvans of the Great Epic but also the Harivamsa, which had been traditionally regarded as its Khila-parvan. Naturally enough, during the first thirty years and more, the Institute applied its entire energy to the completion of the Critical Edition of the main epic. When, however, in course of time, the end of that work was well-nigh in sight, the Mahabharata Department began to think of commencing the work on the Harivamsa in right earnest. Accordingly, the preliminaries in that connection were taken in hand, in an informal manner, in August 1954. Later, at a solemn function organized at the Institute on November 19, 1954, Rashtrapati Dr. Rajendra Prasad formally inaugurated the work of the Critical Edition of the Harivamsa by writing down on the collation-sheet, in his own hand, its first stanza. It may be recalled that the work of the Critical Edition of the Mahabharata had been inaugurated in a similar way by Ramakrishna Bhandarkar thirty-five years before.
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