Trends of Philosophical Thought in Mahabharata

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 vast canvas encompasses all aspects of human life in the early age of Indian culture which were later on crystallized into various darsanas of Indian philosophy. They were mainly six and practically incorporated the Indian thinking of those days. The Mahabharata has given respectable place to almost all of them and consequently has become encyclopaedic in nature. Mrs. Joshi has taken an excellent survey of all those thoughts in her book entitiled “The Trends of Philosophical Thought in the Mahabharata.”