Mahabharat - Lesser Known Stories
Just short of 2 million words and about ten times the size of Illiad and Odyssey put together- such is our Mahabharatha. This great epic is so voluminous that reading it all in detail is quite the task. Our busy lives don’t permit us to sit down and read the entire 100,000 shloka format and we often know the Mahabharatha only from concise versions, retellings, summaries or simply from our grandparents.
In doing this, we often miss out on a lot that the epic has to give us- the stories of forgotten people who are key to the tale, the stories of why they acted the way they did, the stories of boons and curses, of asuras, devas, animals and birds. And of course, humans too.
The Mahabharatha in its entirety and the associated texts answer a million questions that crop up in our minds:
Why was Vyasa called Vyasa?
Was Satyavati truly a fisherwoman?
Why was his foot the only vulnerable part of Krishna’s body?
Is there going to be a ‘Next’ Vyasa? Who is he?
In this upcoming series of posts on Sutradhar, join me, Bharathi, in diving deep into the Mahabharatha and discovering some such lesser known aspects of the great epic. Understand more about the great heroes and villains and discover things about them that you were never told.
The Mahabharatha is a deep and vast ocean with innumerable treasures lying hidden within its depths. Let us not allow the mere waves upon this ocean distract us from these.
Bharathi. V
(Author)
About the author
Bharathi is one of the authors of the Unsung Valour anthology published by Bloomsbury. She is a Mahabharata enthusiast who is always up for a discussion about the epic with like minded individuals. Through her social media posts, the #MBonWhatsapp series, #StoryInSquares series, and more, she likes to share and discuss her learnings and experiences with the epic. She also publishes MB based stories on her Substack account.
