Fidel Priestonn,
39 Bartok Bela korut Szombathely,
Szombathely 9700
Hungary
Last updated: October 14, 2010
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata
The Mahabharata (Sanskrit Mahābhārata महाभारत) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Rāmāyaṇa. The epic is part of the Hindu itihāsa (or "history"). A major text of Hinduism and a cornerstone of Hindu mythology, it is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent. Its consideration of human goals (dharma or duty, artha or purpose, kāma, pleasure or desire and moksha or liberation) is part of a long-standing tradition which seeks to explain the relationship of the individual to society and the world (the nature of the 'Self') and the workings of karma.
Traditionally, the authorship of the Mahabharata is attributed to Vyasa. There have been many attempts to unravel its historical growth and compositional layers, the earliest of which probably date back to the late Vedic period (ca. 8th c. BCE). The text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta period (ca. 4th c. CE). The title may be translated as "the great tale of the Bhārata dynasty". According to the Mahabharata itself, the tale is extended from a shorter version of 24,000 verses, called simply Bhārata'.
With about one hundred thousand verses, long prose passages, and about 1.8 million words in total, the Mahabharata is the longest epic poem in the world. 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. Including the Harivaṃśa, the Mahabharata has a total length of more than 90,000 verses.
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Fidel Priestonn,
39 Bartok Bela korut Szombathely,
Szombathely 9700
Hungary
Last updated: October 14, 2010