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the Bhagavad Gita in book 6 (Bhishmaparva): Krishna advises and teaches Arjuna when he is ridden with doubt.What is not found here, will not be found elsewhere."Īmong the principal works and stories that are a part of the Mahabharata are the following (often considered isolated as works in their own right): The Mahabharata claims all-inclusiveness at the beginning of its first parva ("book"): "What is found here, may be found elsewhere. The latter are enumerated as dharma (right action), artha (purpose), kama (pleasure), and moksha (liberation). Krishna, Arjuna at Kurukshetra, 18-19 th century painting.īesides its epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kauravas and the Pandavas, the Mahabharata contains much philosophical and devotional material, such as the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita (6.25-42) which has a very high level of philosophical and religious content, or a discussion of the four "goals of life" or purusharthas (12.161). 5 Versions, translations, and derivative works.Including the Harivaṃśa, the Mahabharata has a total length of more than 90,000 verses. It is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined, roughly five times longer than Dante's Divine Comedy, and about four times the length of the Ramayana. With about one hundred thousand verses, long prose passages, and about 1.8 million words in total, the Mahābhārata is one of the longest epic poems in the world. BC) and it probably reached its final form by the time the Gupta period began (ca. Its earliest layers probably date back to the late Vedic period (ca. There have been many attempts to unravel its historical growth and composition layers. Traditionally, the authorship of the Mahābhārata is attributed to Vyasa. According to the Mahābhārata's own testimony it is extended from a shorter version simply called Bhārata of 24,000 verses. The title may be translated as "the great tale of the Bhārata dynasty".

Its discussion of human goals ( dharma or duty, artha or purpose, kāma, pleasure or desire and moksha or liberation) takes place in a long-standing tradition, attempting to explain the relationship of the individual to society and the world (the nature of the ' Self') and the workings of karma. It is of immense importance to culture in the Indian subcontinent, and is a major text of Hinduism. The epic is part of the Hindu itihāsa (literally "history"), and forms an important part of Hindu mythology. The Mahābhārata ( Devanāgarī: महाभारत) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Rāmāyaṇa.