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The Genius of Dnyaneshwar
Dnyaneshwari Verses 28–31
Chapter 19
Mahabharat
Mahabharat is the longest epic in the history of mankind and was narrated in verse. Originally with the title ‘history of a victory’, it contained about 10,000 verses and was about a major war fought west of today’s New Delhi about 2500 years ago. The combatants were cousins, who fought over a kingdom, the inheritance of which was disputed. The cousins had a long lineage of kings who were named Manu (as in man) or Puru (as in purush, also meaning a man in Sanskrit). The ‘history of a victory’ was later named after an important king called ‘Bharat,’ who had lived five generations earlier and was one of the most successful in expanding his kingdom. The epic expanded over the next several centuries to include several tales, fables, legends, and also incorporated the history of the progeny of those who had fought the original war. Because the scope of the epic thus got wider it came to be called Mahabharat (the word ‘maha’ in Sanskrit means huge). India’s name in her constitution is ‘Bharat’ and this name is used to denote her (India) in all Indian languages. Human nature constitutes the core of this epic. The multiple simultaneous narrations of different characters over centuries, in the Mahabharat, contain noble and vile deeds, devotion and infidelity1, friendship and betrayal, crude instincts and majestic ideas, heroic deeds and treachery, greed and charity, anger and peace, jealousy and love, infatuation2 and seduction3, strong sexual urges, tendency to war, steadfast bachelors and virtuous as well as fallen women. All this forms a rich tapestry4 of an extraordinary human drama. It has been said that there is nothing in human experience to date, which has not been covered by this epic narrated in exquisite Sanskrit. Most importantly, almost all the characters discuss questions of life and death, ethics, beauty, the origin of all that is, as well as science, sociology, armaments, economics and art. The questions of philosophy are dealt with in a concise form in a separate section of