Mahabharata

The great Indian epic — a civil war between cousins, and the container of the Bhagavad Gita.

Overview

The Mahabharata is an ancient Indian epic — “the greatest tale ever told,” in the phrase Swami quotes. The core story is a civil war between cousins: the five Pandava brothers and the hundred Kaurava cousins led by Duryodhana.

The war. The Kauravas seize the Pandavas’ rightful kingdom and inflict years of suffering. Matters climax in an eighteen-day battle at Kurukshetra that destroys most of those involved.

Its relation to the Gita. The Bhagavad Gita is embedded inside the Mahabharata as the teaching Krishna delivers to Arjuna on the eve of battle. But Swami stresses that the Gita is not really about the Mahabharata’s plot — the war, who was right, who was wrong. Those are interesting questions for Indians and for scholars, but they are not what the Gita is teaching.

Scope. The Puranas and Indian epics characteristically begin at the beginning — the creation of the universe — and layer stories within stories. The Mahabharata is famously long and multi-branching.

Related entities and concepts

• Contains the bhagavad-gita
• Protagonists: pandavas, especially arjuna
• Antagonists: kauravas, especially duryodhana
• Framing narrator: sanjaya to dhritarashtra
• Battlefield setting: kurukshetra
• Classification: part of smriti

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 1 [14:17]: “The greatest tale ever told.”
• Ep. 1 [14:30]: Civil war between cousins — five Pandavas vs hundred Kauravas.
• Ep. 1 [15:11]: Ends in the 18-day Mahabharata war.
• Ep. 1 [15:27]: The Gita, embedded in it, is not really about the Mahabharata’s plot.