A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"THE MAHABHARATA.HE other Epic ai>^ut which I am going to speak toyouis called The Mahabharata." Mahabharate isthe name of India Great India. The region of thequarrel is not very big, but this epichas been tLe -mostpopular one in India and;somehow or other it got an authority, as Homer s poem had for the Greeks. As ageswent on, everybody put something into it till it has becomea huge book of a hundred thousand verses. All sorts ofphilosphical treatises, little bits of history, and severalother ^ scussions have been added on from time to timetill it is a vast, gigantic mass ;but throughall that runsthe old, ancient epic, the original story.The central story of the Mahabharata is a war, between two families of cousins, one, called the Kauravasthe other, the Pandavas for the Empire of India.The Aryans came into India in small companies ;gradually, these tribes began to extend and then, at last,they became the undisputed rulers of India and then;arosethis fight between two branches of the same family to gainmastery. Those of you that have studied the Gita knowhow the book opens with a description of the battle-field ;that it was ridged with two armies, arrayed one againstthe other to fight.There were two brothers, descendants of the :emperorone was called Dhritarashtra, and the other was calledPandu. Dhritarashtra was born blind though the elderone ;and according to Indian law, no blind, halt or* A lecture reprinted from the * Brahma vadin, August, 1902.