The Mahabharata, Volume 1: Books 1, 2 and 3

About this book

The Mahabharata, the longest epic poem in the world, tells of the war between two branches of a royal family, the five Pandava brothers and their cousins the Kauravas. This first volume contains its first three books: the origins of the dynasty and the birth and youth of the heroes; the Pandavas' marriage to Draupadi; the fatal game of dice in which the eldest brother, Yudhishthira, gambles away his kingdom, his brothers, himself and Draupadi, who is dragged before the court; and the beginning of their twelve years of exile in the forest, full of tales such as the love story of Nala and Damayanti.

Context and significance

Composed over many centuries and traditionally attributed to the sage Vyasa, the epic is a storehouse of Indian myth, law and philosophy; the Bhagavad Gita is part of a later book. Kisari Mohan Ganguli's prose version, published between 1883 and 1896, was the first complete English translation. Its sister epic is the Rámáyan of Válmíki.

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