Read this if you…
- like LOTR style epic fantasy
- like Greek mythology/ arabian night style worldbuilding/ side stories
- read the Bhagavad Gita and want to read the entire work it comes from
- want to yell at people later how its the most underrated Ancient story by far
Skip this if you…
- can't commit to a long book... or you're not okay starting and not finishing (most won't get all the way through, still worth it!)
- don't want explicitly religious/hindu texts
- don't want to realize this is better than iliad/odyssey
The 
Take
Shockingly fantastic. Source material must be great and menon must have done a great job abridging and modernizing the languageEasily my favorite epic. Perfect mix of Iliad/oddyssey epic poetry, fantasy elements more like LOTR, religious/philosophical discussions like the Bhagavad Gita. Excellent background narrative with incredible mythological world building via “side stories” Super fun and wild stories, yet a coherent whole. Probably the most complete ancient work I’ve readLoved the dog at the end , awesome final test
Depicted in Art
Arjuna in his chariot fires the killing arrow at Karna, whose chariot wheel has sunk into the earth on the Kurukshetra battlefield.
Mughal painters (attributed to Fazl), 1616
Dhrishtadyumna closes in on the kneeling Drona; Pandava and Kaurava warriors watch from chariots and horseback in densely packed Mughal-court composition.
Mughal painters
Bhishma lies pierced by countless arrows on the Kurukshetra battlefield, holding his head up; Arjuna stands above with bow drawn, having shot the pillow-arrows that support him.
Unknown, 1895
King Shantanu encounters the fisherwoman Satyavati on the riverbank; she stands holding the boat-pole in a moment of mutual recognition.
Raja Ravi Varma
Krishna's universal body fills the frame as a many-headed, many-armed colossus containing gods, beings, suns and worlds; tiny Arjuna kneels in awe at his feet.
1820
Krishna stands at the Kaurava court revealing his cosmic form (vishvarupa) before a recoiling Duryodhana after peace talks collapse.
Raja Ravi Varma, 1906
Gods and demons grip opposite ends of the serpent Vasuki coiled around Mount Mandara and churn the cosmic ocean as treasures rise from the foam.
Mughal painters
Krishna's universal form towers as a colossus of dozens of stacked multicolored heads and scores of pinwheeling, weapon-bearing arms, filling the page from edge to edge.
1740
Draupadi, hair loosed, prays toward Krishna as Dussasana pulls her sari; the Kaurava court watches in silence while the cloth becomes endless.
Raja Ravi Varma
Krishna stands in his cosmic form, multiple heads and arms wreathed in suns and gods; Arjuna kneels with folded hands at the lower edge.
Anant Shivaji Desai (Ravi Varma Press), 1910
On the eve of battle, the divine charioteer Krishna leans toward a despondent Arjuna in the war chariot, delivering the teaching that becomes the Gita.
Mughal painters
A Mahabharata court scene in the delicate Kangra Pahari idiom — opaque watercolour and gold on paper, jewel-like figures arranged across a pale architectural ground.
Unknown (in the manner of Purkhu), 1817
In King Virata's court, the lecherous Keechaka grasps at the disguised Draupadi (as the maidservant Sairandhri); Draupadi recoils.
Raja Ravi Varma
Recommended Editions
Ramesh Menon
Rupa · 2004
Menon's two-volume prose retelling reads like a novel and is what most general readers pick up. Not a translation in any strict sense, but the fastest way through a story that runs roughly ten Iliads end to end.
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Notable Quotes
I am Time grown old, the destroyer of worlds.
Screen & Stage
Posters via The Movie Database (TMDB)
- Peter Brook, British theater & film director (1925–2022): "One of the greatest works of humanity … both far from us and very near."
- Henry David Thoreau, American essayist & poet (1817–1862): "In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta."
- Gurcharan Das, Indian author & former Procter & Gamble India CEO (b. 1943): Where a Greek hero barely pauses after doing wrong, in the Mahabharata the action stops and everyone debates dharma.
- Mahatma Gandhi, Indian independence leader (1869–1948): "I look upon Gibbon and Motley as inferior editions of the Mahabharata."