Composition of the Mahabharata

History glossary

Topic: Society in Early India: Kinship, Varna-Jati, Women · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Kinship, Caste and Class - Early Societies"

Meaning

The Mahabharata was not written at one time by one person. It grew over about a thousand years, from c. 500 BCE onwards. It began with less than 10,000 verses and grew to about 100,000 verses. Knowing how it was built up helps historians use the epic carefully as a source.

Example

The epic grew in four main stages:

  1. Sutas (charioteer-bards) first sang the story aloud.
  2. From the 5th century BCE, Brahmanas took it over and began writing it down. This was when Kuru-Panchala chiefdoms were becoming kingdoms.
  3. Between c. 200 BCE and 200 CE, Krishna came to be identified with the god Vishnu.
  4. Between c. 200 and 400 CE, long teaching sections on social rules, similar to the Manusmriti, were added.

Don't confuse with

  • Critical Edition: this was a modern project begun in 1919 under V.S. Sukthankar. Scholars compared manuscripts of the epic. It is a study of the text, not a stage in how the epic was composed.

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