The Mahabharata: Vol.7

The Mahabharata is one of the greatest stories ever told. Though the basic plot is widely known, there is much more to the epic than the dispute between Kouravas and Pandavas that led to the battle in Kurukshetra. It has innumerable sub-plots that accommodate fascinating meanderings and digressions, and it has rarely been translated in full, given its formidable length of 80,000 shlokas or couplets. This magnificent 10- volume unabridged translation of the epic is based on the Critical Edition compiled at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.

The seventh volume continues with the account of the war with Karna who is instated as the commander of the Kourava army for two days. After his death, Shalya is the commander for one day. Shalya too dies. Duryodhana meets his death in the hands of Bhima and the great war comes to an end.

Every conceivable human emotion figures in the Mahabharata, the reason why the epic continues to hold sway over our imagination. In this lucid, nuanced and confident translation, Bibek Debroy makes the Mahabharata marvellously accessible to contemporary readers.