eBook - ePub
Available until 29 Nov |Learn more
The Mahabharata
A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic
This book is available to read until 29th November, 2025
- 189 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Available until 29 Nov |Learn more
About this book
"Narayan makes this treasury of Indian folklore and mythology readily accessible to the general readerĀ .Ā .Ā . he captures the spirit of the narrative."ā
Library Journal
The Mahabharata tells a story of such violence and tragedy that many people in India refuse to keep the full text in their homes, fearing that doing so would invite a disastrous fate upon their house. Covering everything from creation to destruction, this ancient poem remains an indelible part of Hindu culture and a landmark in ancient literature.
Centuries of listeners and readers have been drawn to The Mahabharata, which began as disparate oral ballads and grew into a sprawling epic. The modern version is famously long, and at more than 1.8 million wordsāseven times the combined lengths of the Iliad and Odysseyāit can be incredibly daunting.
But contemporary readers have a much more accessible entry point to this important work, thanks to R. K. Narayan's masterful, elegant translation and abridgement of the poem. Now with a new foreword by Wendy Doniger, as well as a concise character and place guide and a family tree, The Mahabharata is ready for a new generation of readers. Narayan ably distills a tale that is both traditional and constantly changing. He draws from both scholarly analysis and creative interpretation and vividly fuses the spiritual with the secular. Through this balance he has produced a translation that is not only clear, but graceful, one that stands as its own story as much as an adaptation of a larger work.
The Mahabharata tells a story of such violence and tragedy that many people in India refuse to keep the full text in their homes, fearing that doing so would invite a disastrous fate upon their house. Covering everything from creation to destruction, this ancient poem remains an indelible part of Hindu culture and a landmark in ancient literature.
Centuries of listeners and readers have been drawn to The Mahabharata, which began as disparate oral ballads and grew into a sprawling epic. The modern version is famously long, and at more than 1.8 million wordsāseven times the combined lengths of the Iliad and Odysseyāit can be incredibly daunting.
But contemporary readers have a much more accessible entry point to this important work, thanks to R. K. Narayan's masterful, elegant translation and abridgement of the poem. Now with a new foreword by Wendy Doniger, as well as a concise character and place guide and a family tree, The Mahabharata is ready for a new generation of readers. Narayan ably distills a tale that is both traditional and constantly changing. He draws from both scholarly analysis and creative interpretation and vividly fuses the spiritual with the secular. Through this balance he has produced a translation that is not only clear, but graceful, one that stands as its own story as much as an adaptation of a larger work.
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Yes, you can access The Mahabharata by R. K. Narayan in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Classics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Copyright
- Title Page
- Frontispiece
- Also by R. K. Narayan
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction
- List of Characters and Places of Action in the Story
- Generation Tree
- 1. The Eighth Baby
- 2. Enterāthe Players
- 3. House of Joyāand Ashes
- 4. Bride for Five
- 5. Uncleās Gift
- 6. City of Splendour
- 7. Stakes Unmatched
- 8. Wanderings
- 9. Hundred Questions
- 10. Servitude
- 11. Warning Shots
- 12. War or Peace?
- 13. Action
- 14. Hesitant Hero
- 15. Delirium of Destruction
- 16. Victory and Sorrow
- 17. Epilogue
- Notes
- Glossary