In the early 1980s, quite by chance, I encountered two shlokas, one from Valmiki’s Ramayana, the other from Kalidasa’s Meghadutam. These were two poets separated by anything between 500 to 1,000 years, the exact period being an uncertain one. The shloka in Meghadutam is right towards the beginning, the second shloka to be precise. It is the first day in the month of Ashada. The yaksha has been cursed and has been separated from his beloved. The mountains are covered with clouds. These clouds are like elephants, bent down as if in play. The shloka in the Valmiki Ramayana occurs in Sundara Kanda. Rama now knows that Sita is in Lanka. But the monsoon stands in the way of the invasion. The clouds are streaked with flags of lightning and garlanded with geese. They are like mountain peaks and are thundering, like elephants fighting. At that time, I did not know that elephants were a standard metaphor for clouds in Sanskrit literature. I found it amazing that two different poets separated by time had thought of elephants. And because the yaksha was pining for his beloved, the elephants were playing. But because Rama was impatient to fight, the elephants were fighting. I resolved that I must read all this in the original. It was a resolution I have never regretted. I think that anyone who has not read Meghadutam in Sanskrit has missed out on a thing of beauty that will continue to be a joy for generations to come.
In the early 1980s, Professor Ashok Rudra was a professor of economics in Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. I used to teach in Presidency College, Kolkata, and we sometimes met. Professor Rudra was a left-wing economist and didn’t think much of my economics. I dare say the feeling was reciprocated. By tacit agreement, we never discussed economics. Instead, we discussed Indological subjects. At that point, Professor Rudra used to write essays on such subjects in Bengali. I casually remarked, ‘I want to do a statistical test on the frequency with which the five Pandavas used various weapons in the Kurukshetra war.’ Most sensible men would have dismissed the thought as crazy. But Professor Rudra wasn’t sensible by usual norms of behaviour and he was also a trained statistician. He encouraged me to do the paper, written and published in Bengali, using the Aryashastra edition. Several similar papers followed, written in Bengali. In 1983, I moved to Pune, to the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, a stone’s throw away from BORI. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (ABORI) is one of the most respected journals in Indology. Professor G.B. Palsule was then the editor of ABORI and later went on to become Director of BORI. I translated one of the Bengali essays into English and went and met Professor Palsule, hoping to get it published in ABORI. To Professor Palsule’s eternal credit, he didn’t throw the dilettante out. Instead, he said he would get the paper refereed. The referee’s substantive criticism was that the paper should have been based on the critical edition, which is how I came to know about it. Eventually, this paper (and a few more) were published in ABORI. In 1989, these became a book titled Essays on the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, published when the Mahabharata frenzy had reached a peak on television. The book got excellent reviews, but hardly sold. It is now out of print. As an aside, the book was jointly dedicated to Professor Rudra and Professor Palsule, a famous economist and a famous Indologist respectively. Both were flattered. However, when I gave him a copy, Professor Rudra said, ‘Thank you very much. But who is Professor Palsule?’ And Professor Palsule remarked, ‘Thank you very much. But who is Professor Rudra?’
While the research interest in the Mahabharata remained, I got sidetracked into translating. Through the 1990s, there were abridged translations of the Maha Puranas, the Vedas and the eleven major Upanishads. I found that I enjoyed translating from the Sanskrit to English and since these volumes were well received, perhaps I did do a good job. With Penguin as publisher, I did a translation of the Bhagavad Gita, something I had always wanted to do. Sarama and Her Children, a book on attitudes towards dogs in India, also with Penguin, followed. I kept thinking about doing an unabridged translation of the Mahabharata and waited to muster up the courage. That courage now exists, though the task is daunting. With something like two million words and ten volumes expected, the exercise seems open-ended. But why translate the Mahabharata? In 1924, George Mallory, with his fellow climber Andrew Irvine, may or may not have climbed Mount Everest. They were last seen a few hundred metres from the summit, before they died. Mallory was once asked why he wanted to climb Everest and he answered, ‘Because it’s there.’ Taken out of context, there is no better reason for wanting to translate the Mahabharata. There is a steep mountain to climb. And I would not have dared had I not been able to stand on the shoulders of the three intellectual giants who have preceded me—Kisori Mohan Ganguli, Manmatha Nath Dutt and J.A.B. van Buitenen.
Bibek Debroy
Family Tree
Bharata/Puru Lineage
Shanti Parva
Shanti Parva is a parva that is about peace, shanti meaning peace. In the 18-parva classification, Shanti Parva is the twelfth and is the longest parva of the Mahabharata. In the 100-parva classification, Shanti Parva constitutes sections 84 to 86. Shanti Parva has 353 chapters. In the numbering of the chapters in Shanti Parva, the first number is a consecutive one, starting with the beginning of the Mahabharata. And the second number, within brackets, is the numbering of the chapter within Shanti Parva.
Section Eighty-Six
Moksha Dharma Parva
This parva has 6,935 shlokas and 186 chapters.
Chapter 1496(168): 53 shlokas
Chapter 1497(169): 37 shlokas
Chapter 1498(170): 23 shlokas
Chapter 1499(171): 61 shlokas
Chapter 1500(172): 37 shlokas
Chapter 1501(173): 52 shlokas
Chapter 1502(174): 20 shlokas
Chapter 1503(175): 37 shlokas
Chapter 1504(176): 17 shlokas
Chapter 1505(177): 39 shlokas
Chapter 1506(178): 17 shlokas
Chapter 1507(179): 15 shlokas
Chapter 1508(180): 30 shlokas
Chapter 1509(181): 20 shlokas
Chapter 1510(182): 17 shlokas
Chapter 1511(183): 16 shlokas
Chapter 1512(184): 18 shlokas
Chapter 1513(185): 27 shlokas
Chapter 1514(186): 32 shlokas
Chapter 1515(187): 60 shlokas
Chapter 1516(188): 22 shlokas
Chapter 1517(189): 21 shlokas
Chapter 1518(190): 13 shlokas
Chapter 1519(191): 11 shlokas
Chapter 1520(192): 127 shlokas
Chapter 1521(193): 32 shlokas
Chapter 1522(194): 24 shlokas
Chapter 1523(195): 23 shlokas
Chapter 1524(196): 23 shlokas
Chapter 1525(197): 20 shlokas
Chapter 1526(198): 18 shlokas
Chapter 1527(199): 32 shlokas
Chapter 1528(200): 46 shlokas
Chapter 1529(201): 35 shlokas
Chapter 1530(202): 33 shlokas
Chapter 1531(203): 43 shlokas
Chapter 1532(204): 16 shlokas
Chapter 1533(205): 33 shlokas
Chapter 1534(206): 21 shlokas
Chapter 1535(207): 29 shlokas
Chapter 1537(209): 20 shlokas
Chapter 1538(210): 36 shlokas
Chapter 1539(211): 48 shlokas
Chapter 1540(212): 52 shlokas
Chapter 1541(213): 18 shlokas
Chapter 1542(214): 16 shlokas
Chapter 1543(215): 37 shlokas
Chapter 1544(216): 28 shlokas
Chapter 1545(217): 59 shlokas
Chapter 1546(218): 38 shlokas
Chapter 1547(219): 23 shlokas
Chapter 1548(220): 118 shlokas
Chapter 1549(221): 94 shlokas
Chapter 1550(222): 24 shlokas
Chapter 1551(223): 23 shlokas
Chapter 1552(224): 75 shlokas
Chapter 1553(225): 16 shlokas
Chapter 1554(226): 38 shlokas
Chapter 1555(227): 31 shlokas
Chapter 1556(228): 38 shlokas
Chapter 1557(229): 25 shlokas
Chapter 1558(230): 21 shlokas
Chapter 1559(231): 34 shlokas
Chapter 1560(232): 34 shlokas
Chapter 1561(233): 20 shlokas
Chapter 1562(234): 29 shlokas
Chapter 1563(235): 27 shlokas
Chapter 1564(236): 30 shlokas
Chapter 1565(237): 36 shlokas
Chapter 1566(238): 20 shlokas
Chapter 1567(239): 25 shlokas
Chapter 1568(240): 22 shlokas
Chapter 1569(241): 14 shlokas
Chapter 1570(242): 25 shlokas
Chapter 1571(243): 23 shlokas
Chapter 1572(244): 12 shlokas
Chapter 1573(245): 14 shlokas
Chapter 1574(246): 15 shlokas
Chapter 1575(247): 13 shlokas
Chapter 1576(248): 21 shlokas
Chapter 1577(249): 22 shlokas
Chapter 1578(250): 41 shlokas
Chapter 1579(251): 26 shlokas
Chapter 1580(252): 20 shlokas
Chapter 1581(253): 51 shlokas
Chapter 1582(254): 52 shlokas
Chapter 1583(255): 41 shlokas
Chapter 1584(256): 22 shlokas
Chapter 1585(257): 13 shlokas
Chapter 1586(258): 75 shlokas
Chapter 1587(259): 35 shlokas
Chapter 1588(260): 39 shlokas
Chapter 1589(261): 61 shlokas
Chapter 1590(262): 45 shlokas
Chapter 1591(263): 55 shlokas
Chapter 1592(264): 19 shlokas
Chapter 1593(265): 23 shlokas
Chapter 1594(266): 19 shlokas
Chapter 1595(267): 38 shlokas
Chapter 1596(268): 14 shlokas
Chapter 1597(269): 20 shlokas
Chapter 1598(270): 34 shlokas
Chapter 1599(271): 69 shlokas
Chapter 1600(272): 44 shlokas
Chapter 1601(273): 63 shlokas
Chapter 1602(274): 60 shlokas
Chapter 1603(275): 21 shlokas
Chapter 1604(276): 58 shlokas
Chapter 1605(277): 47 shlokas
Chapter 1606(278): 38 shlokas
Chapter 1607(279): 25 shlokas
Chapter 1608(280): 23 shlokas
Chapter 1609(281): 23 shlokas
Chapter 1610(282): 21 shlokas
Chapter 1611(283): 30 shlokas
Chapter 1612(284): 39 shlokas
Chapter 1613(285): 39 shlokas
Chapter 1614(286): 41 shlokas
Chapter 1615(287): 45 shlokas
Chapter 1616(288): 45 shlokas
Chapter 1617(289): 62 shlokas
Chapter 1618(290): 110 shlokas
Chapter 1619(291): 48 shlokas
Chapter 1620(292): 48 shlokas
Chapter 1621(293): 50 shlokas
Chapter 1622(294): 49 shlokas
Chapter 1623(295): 46 shlokas
Chapter 1624(296): 50 shlokas
Chapter 1625(297): 25 shlokas
Chapter 1626(298): 26 shlokas
Chapter 1627(299): 18 shlokas
Chapter 1628(300): 17 shlokas
Chapter 1629(301): 27 shlokas
Chapter 1630(302): 18 shlokas
Chapter 1631(303): 21 shlokas
Chapter 1632(304): 27 shlokas
Chapter 1633(305): 21 shlokas
Chapter 1634(306): 108 shlokas
Chapter 1635(307): 14 shlokas
Chapter 1636(308): 191 shlokas
Chapter 1637(309): 52 shlokas
Chapter 1638(310): 29 shlokas
Chapter 1639(311): 27 shlokas
Chapter 1640(312): 46 shlokas
Chapter 1641(313): 51 shlokas
Chapter 1642(314): 49 shlokas
Chapter 1643(315): 57 shlokas
Chapter 1644(316): 59 shlokas
Chapter 1645(317): 30 shlokas
Chapter 1646(318): 63 shlokas
Chapter 1647(319): 29 shlokas
Chapter 1648(320): 41 shlokas
Chapter 1649(321): 43 shlokas
Chapter 1650(322): 52 shlokas
Chapter 1651(323): 57 shlokas
Chapter 1652(324): 39 shlokas
Chapter 1653(325): 4 shlokas
Chapter 1654(326): 124 shlokas
Chapter 1655(327): 107 shlokas
Chapter 1656(328): 53 shlokas
Chapter 1657(329): 50 shlokas
Chapter 1658(330):71 shlokas
Chapter 1659(331): 52 shlokas
Chapter 1660(332): 26 shlokas
Chapter 1661(333): 25 shlokas
Chapter 1662(334): 17 shlokas
Chapter 1663(335): 89 shlokas
Chapter 1664(336): 82 shlokas
Chapter 1665(337): 69 shlokas
Chapter 1666(338): 25 shlokas
Chapter 1667(339): 21 shlokas
Chapter 1668(340): 11 shlokas
Chapter 1669(341): 9 shlokas
Chapter 1670(342): 16 shlokas
Chapter 1671(343): 11 shlokas
Chapter 1672(344): 10 shlokas
Chapter 1673(345): 13 shlokas
Chapter 1674(346): 13 shlokas
Chapter 1675(347): 16 shlokas
Chapter 1676(348): 20 shlokas
Chapter 1677(349): 16 shlokas
Chapter 1678(350): 15 shlokas
Chapter 1679(351): 6 shlokas
Chapter 1680(352): 10 shlokas
Chapter 1681(353): 9 shlokas
Moksha means liberation, as opposed to the pursuit of dharma, artha and kama.
Chapter 1528(200)
‘Yudhishthira said, “O grandfather! O immensely wise one! O best among the Bharata lineage! I wish to hear the truth about Pundarikaksha, Achyuta, the creator who himself has not been created, Vishnu, from whom all beings originate and into whom they all return, Narayana, Hrishikesha, the unvanquished Govinda, Keshava.”
‘Bhishma replied, “I have heard the truth about this from Jamadagni’s son, Rama,1 when he spoke about it, from devarshi Narada and from Krishna Dvaipayana.2 O son! Asita-Devala,3 the immensely ascetic Valmiki and Markandeya have spoken about the extraordinarily great Govinda. O foremost among the Bharata lineage! Keshava is the illustrious almighty lord. He is Purusha and pervades everything. The lord is heard of in many ways. O mightyarmed one! O Yudhishthira! He is the wielder of the sharnga bow.4 Learned brahmanas in the world have spoken about his greatness. Listen to this. O Indra among men! People who know about the ancient accounts speak about this. Govinda’s qualities are infinite and I will recount them to you. He is the great being. He is in all beings. Purushottama is great in his soul. He created wind, energy, water, space and the earth. The lord, the god of all beings, looked at the earth. The great-souled Purushottama proceeded to lie down on the water. The first among all the beings was full of energy and lay down on that supreme bed and created attraction.5 We have heard that the soul of all beings created this refuge of all beings through his mental powers and this sustains both the past and the future. O mighty-armed one! After that had been created, a celestial lotus sprouted from the great-souled one’s navel and it had the radiance of the sun. O son! The illustrious god Brahma, the grandfather of all beings, was created from that lotus and the directions shone with his radiance. O mighty-armed one! When that great-souled one manifested himself, there was a great asura named Madhu, who had earlier been born from darkness. He was fierce. He was fierce in his deeds and his resolution was fierce.6 To ensure Brahma’s welfare, Purushottama slew him. O son! Because of this act of slaying, all the gods, danavas and humans came to call that bull among all the Satvatas by the name of Madhusudana.7
‘“Through his mental powers, Brahma created seven sons, Daksha and the others—Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha and Kratu.8 O son! Through his mental powers, Marichi created his first son, Kashyapa. He was like Brahma in his energy. O foremost among the Bharata lineage! Even before Marichi had been created, from his toe, Brahma created the
Prajapati named Daksha.9 O descendant of the Bharata lineage! Thirteen daughters were first born to him. The eldest of Prajapati’s daughters was Diti. O son! Marichi’s son, Kashyapa, knew about all forms of dharma, was immensely illustrious and auspicious in his deeds. He became a husband to all of them. Daksha Prajapati, the immensely fortunate one, who knew about dharma, then had ten other daughters and gave them to Dharma. O descendant of the Bharata lineage! Dharma’s sons were the Vasus, the infinitely energetic Rudras, the Vishvadevas, the Sadhyas and the Maruts. He10 then had twenty-seven younger daughters. The immensely fortunate Soma11 became a husband to all of them. The others12 gave birth to gandharvas,13 horses, birds, cattle, kimpurushas,14 fish, plants and trees. Aditi gave birth to the Adityas, the immensely strong ones who were foremost among the gods. The lord Vishnu, also known as Govinda, was born among them as a dwarf.15 Through his valour, the prosperity of the gods increased and the danavas were vanquished. Diti’s offspring were the asuras.16 Danu gave birth to danavas and Viprachitti was foremost among them. Diti gave birth to all the great-spirited asuras.