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The Mahābhārata is an ancient Indian epic that has evolved over two millennia, initially as oral stories and later as a unified sacred text in Sanskrit. It significantly contributed to the formation of Hindu culture alongside the Rāmāyaṇa and continues to influence various art forms across India and Southeast Asia. Beyond its historical significance, the Mahābhārata is celebrated for its profound narrative and themes, positioning it among the greatest works of world literature.

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16 views3 pages

M B Part 3

The Mahābhārata is an ancient Indian epic that has evolved over two millennia, initially as oral stories and later as a unified sacred text in Sanskrit. It significantly contributed to the formation of Hindu culture alongside the Rāmāyaṇa and continues to influence various art forms across India and Southeast Asia. Beyond its historical significance, the Mahābhārata is celebrated for its profound narrative and themes, positioning it among the greatest works of world literature.

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harini.priya1102
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A Brief Description of the Mahābhārata

The Mahābhārata has existed in various forms for well


over two thousand years:
●​ First, starting in the middle of the first millennium BCE, it existed in the
form of popular stories of Gods, kings, and seers retained, retold, and
improved by priests living in shrines, ascetics living in retreats or
wandering about, and by traveling bards, minstrels, dance-troupes, etc.
●​ Later, after about 350 CE, it came to be a unified, sacred text of 100,000
stanzas written in Sanskrit, distributed throughout India by kings and
wealthy patrons, and declaimed from temples.
●​ Even after it became a famous Sanskrit writing it continued to exist in
various performance media in many different local genres of dance and
theater throughout India and then Southeast Asia.
●​ Finally, it came to exist, in numerous literary and popular transformations
in many of the non-Sanskrit vernacular languages of India and Southeast
Asia, which (with the exception of Tamil, a language that had developed a
classical literature in the first millennium BCE) began developing recorded
literatures shortly after 1000 CE.

The Mahābhārata was one of the two most important


factors that created the "Hindu" culture of India (the
other was the other all-India epic, the Rāmāyaṇa,
pronounced approximately as Raa-MEYE-a-na), and
the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa still exert tremendous
cultural influence throughout India and Southeast
Asia.
But the historical importance of the Mahābhārata is
not the main reason to read the Mahābhārata. Quite
simply, the Mahābhārata is a powerful and amazing
text that inspires awe and wonder. It presents
sweeping visions of the cosmos and humanity and
intriguing and frightening glimpses of divinity in an
ancient narrative that is accessible, interesting, and
compelling for anyone willing to learn the basic
themes of India's culture. The Mahābhārata definitely
is one of those creations of human language and
spirit that has traveled far beyond the place of its
original creation and will eventually take its rightful
place on the highest shelf of world literature beside
Homer's epics, the Greek tragedies, the Bible,
Shakespeare, and similarly transcendent works.

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