I am a student of literature and everybody who knows me, knows very well that I adore books and reading. During the education I have read a lot but not always things that I wanted. That was a little bit problematic in some period of my life. I used to buy some book and put it on my shelf. I wanted to read it so badly but I couldn’t find some free time. I had to read other books, less interesting or maybe even boring for me. The book was on my shelf for weeks and I barely could read two-tree pages. It was so frustrating. I put in question my whole education. Everything seemed so pointless. But now, I finally got my degree and now I am working on my mastersˈ thesis. I don’t have to hurry with that, I have enough time till October so I have time for books that I always wanted to read. One of those books is Mahabharata.

Indian myth and legend; Year: 1913 (1910s); Authors: Mackenzie, Donald Alexander,

My studies are pretty much based on European and a little bit of American literature. It’s a shame and my professors also know that. I don’t know why European people want to make everything so Eurocentric, like there are only two or three continents in this world ― Europe, North America and Australia. Literature and culture of Africa, South America and Asia are always on second place or they don’t even have any place, they just don’t exist for us. And I find this is so wrong. Those cultures are so rich and valuable. I decided to learn a little bit more about them, especially about Asia because my boyfriend was born there. I wanted to start with something but I was like blind. I didn’t know from where to start.

Private photo

I had only one subject about literature of Asia. We read Panchatantra and I have heard about Mahabharata and Ramayana. That was something to start with. And I decided to read Mahabharata first because it’s older than Ramayana. I know those books are not only part of literature and culture. They are also holy books of Hinduism. But I am not going to talk about them as theological books. Even when I am reading theological books I am searching for art inside of them. And Mahabharata is also a piece of art.

Battle Scene Between Kripa and Shikhandi from a Mahabharata; around 1670

Mahabharata is the greatest epic poem in the world. It’s almost seven times bigger than Iliad and Odyssey together. It’s an ancient Indian narrative poem with something around 74 000 shloka (shloka is specific Indian verse line). There are two versions, one has around 100 000 and another one 80 000 shloka, but the universal version is shorter. Scientists also believe that first version had 8000 shloka. In the deep past Mahabharata existed only as part of oral literature. Its verses were told by one person to others as poem. Person who knew all the verses of Mahabharata was considered as wise and almost holy.

The language of Mahabharata is simple Sanskrit so everybody could understand it. It was adapted in that way that ordinary people could also listen to holy and wise words. Mahabharata has 18 parvans (chapters or books) and some versions sometimes have even 19th parvan. It’s difficult to determine real time of creation or even authors. It’s obviously that book was made by group of different people. Through the time everyone added some shloka or made things just a little bit different and poem started to grow and to change so rapid. Scientists believe this process took 800 years. They think Mahabharata was created somewhere between 400. B.C. and 400. A.D.

Krishna orders Mayasura to build a palace for the Pandavas (illustration of one of the Mahabharata's stories

The name of this epic poem means Great Poem (story or tale) of the Bharata Dynasty. This book is full of different kind of stories. We can find myths, mythological explanations of some phenomenon as creating the world or explanation of the death and time, philosophical questions, sad parts about human destiny, religious contents or pure poetical and lyrical parts. Mahabharata is book of so many different topics as life itself. In this book we can find every life experience, every situation and every question of this world. Sometimes it gives us opposite views or explanations but if we think about life, we will see that even life itself is made of opposites. Because of that I like Mahabharata the most.

Draupadi and pachisi game (illustration of one of the Mahabharata's stories

Synopsis

This is the story about one dynasty. Famous family of Bharata is divided in two branches (Pandava and Kaurava) and each of them wants to be the main part of the dynasty. It’s a story about family struggle, about taking the power and defeating an enemy in any costs. This is actually one tragic story about fighting between brothers, between people of the same blood. Even when some of them don’t want to fight and kill, they are very often forced to do that. Bad habits and bad feelings provoke disaster. Some of those feelings are anger and envy and we can see the similarity between ancient Indian epos and ancient Greek’s tragedy and epic poems. Some conflicts come from social and moral obligations of individual. Customs won’t let people to do whatever they want and Mahabharata shows us how tragedy can be provoked also because of unbreakable social or cultural code.

Krishna Counsels the Pandava Leaders (illustration of one of the Mahabharata's stories

However, for me the most interesting part of Mahabharata was Bhagavad Gita. This part shows us the deepest doubt of one prince and one family member. Arjuna has to decide on which side he will fight and no matter what he decides he will break some of his duties. Other family members are divided in two parts. In one hand, if he accepts to fight (and he has to because he is a warrior) he will kill a lot of people of his own blood. If he refuses, he will break his duty and he will be ashamed. His guide Lord Krishna wants to help him and he is offering him a lot of different ways and possible answers on this question. The main conclusion is that man shouldn’t be paralyzed in front of the problems. He has to do something. Sacrificing of his own forces is not going to help him. So, he should not do that, he has to take things in his own hands. The sacrifice comes after that. When his work is done and the results of it are there, he should not enjoy in them. If he succeeded in something, he should sacrifice products of his own victory. That’s the only way to nullify the tragedy.

I won’t tell you more about this amazing book. I hope you will read it by yourself soon because it’s worth of that. In my opinion, this book shows every possible life situation, every possible doubt or feeling. I found whole world inside of those pages. Thank you for reading this post. I will appreciate your comments and suggestions.