The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Couverture souple

Vyasa, Krishna-Dwaipayana

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1500530735 ISBN 13 : 9781500530730

Editeur : CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Ramayana. Besides its epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kaurava and the Pandava princes, the Mahabharata contains philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or purusharthas. The Mahabharata is traditionally ascribed to the sage Vyasa, who is also a major character in the epic. Vyasa described it as being itihasa (history). He also describes the Guru-shishya parampara, which traces all great teachers and their students of the Vedic times. Research on the Mahabharata has put an enormous effort into recognizing and dating layers within the text. Some elements of the present Mahabharata can be traced back to Vedic times. The background to the Mahabharata suggests the origin of the epic occurs "after the very early Vedic period" and before "the first Indian 'empire' was to rise in the third century B.C." That this is "a date not too far removed from the 8th or 9th century B.C." is likely. Mahabharata started as an orally-transmitted tale of the charioteer bards. It is generally agreed that "Unlike the Vedas, which have to be preserved letter-perfect, the epic was a popular work whose reciters would inevitably conform to changes in language and style," so the earliest 'surviving' components of this dynamic text are believed to be no older than the earliest 'external' references we have to the epic, which may include an allusion in Panini's 4th century BCE gramma. It is estimated that the Sanskrit text probably reached something of a "final form" by the early Gupta period Vishnu Sukthankar, editor of the first great critical edition of the Mahabharata, commented: "It is useless to think of reconstructing a fluid text in a literally original shape, on the basis of an archetype and a stemma codicum. What then is possible? Our objective can only be to reconstruct the oldest form of the text which it is possible to reach on the basis of the manuscript material available." That manuscript evidence is somewhat late, given its material composition and the climate of India, but it is very extensive.

A propos du livre

About the Author :

Vyasa is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is also sometimes called Veda Vyasa or Krishna Dvaipayana. There are two different views regarding his birthplace. One of the views suggests that he was born in the Tanahun district in western Nepal. He is the author of the Mahabharata, as well as a character in it.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Date d'édition: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1500530735
• ISBN 13: 9781500530730
• Reliure: Paperback
• Nombre de pages: 196