Book Name: Mahabharata
Editors: ? Chandra Sharma, Dr. O.N. Bimali
The Mahabharata is a curious mixture of history and mythology, though the former aspect is the subject of grave doubts in the minds of the professional historians. This is called the fifth Veda and it is universally acknowledged to be of pre-eminent importance. It extols its greatness itself in the following words : yad ihasti tad anyatra yan nehasti na tat kvachit (whatever is here is also elsewhere, whatever is not here is extant nowhere). It contains not only the celebrated Gita but also a large number of other texts which are themselves independent treatises. It is a valuable product of the ancient Indian literature of the post-Vedic age and seems to go back to the prehistoric stage of the human society.
This is the first time that an English translation with complete Sanskrit text of Mahabharata is being published. The translation is based on M.N. Dutt’s translation which is very lucid and accurate according to the Sanskrit text, M.N. Dutt’s translation was according to that time available text of Kolkata edition. However, this text is not available now and therefore we have employed the text of Chitrashala Press, Pune which again an authentic and complete text of Mahabharata. According to Chitrashala’s edition, some of the Sanskrit verses were not translated by M.N. Dutt which has been duly translated in the present edition by the editors.
