How and why was Mahabharata Written?
The Epic of Mahabharata First of all, we need to realise that the entire Mahabharata is a literary representation (albeit exaggerated in details) of actual events that happened in ancient India.There was a war between two clans, between armies led by two groups of kings and princes who were brothers in relation, and one group (Pandavas) completely annihilated the other (Kauravas).Vedavyasa, a contemporary of the time when the war was fought, was also a great scholar: prior tohim, all Vedas were one set of complicated verses.Some Logical proofs and ConclusionsRemember that the Sanskrit language and grammar used in the Vedas is completely different, ancient and difficult than the language and grammar that is used in MahabharathaVedavyasa learned the Vedas from his father Parashara muni, and mastered all the Vedas in a very young age.
In the process, he also realised that it will be a humongous task for anyone to completely memorise the whole Vedas in one lifetime.So, he took in four eminent and bright young scholars:PailaVaisampayanaJaiminiSumanthuHe then divided the Vedas (Vyasa means to divide) based on their content and nature of verses intoRigveda (which contained mostly verses in metre)Yajurveda (which contained mostly prose hymns)Sama Veda (which contained verses which were intended to be sung)Atharvana Veda (which was a collection of spellsand incantations, apotropaic charms and speculative hymns)He Then assigned one Veda to each disciple [In same order as shown]: Rigveda to Paila, Yajurveda to Vaishampayan, Samaveda to Jaimini and Atharvana Veda to Sumanthu.
Why did he do all this ?With the Vedas divided, it became relatively easy to conserve the knowledge contained in them: we can easily say that, if the Vedas are surviving today, it is heavily due to the efforts of this great sage, Vedavyasa.This alone can give us a fair picture of the genius of Vedavyasa: to be able to classify something as huge as the Vedas, one must have complete and thorough knowledge of them in its entirety.
Why was such a huge text of Mahabharata written?Vedavyasa was a very practical man He understood that, unless told in an interesting manner, the knowledge of the Vedas are bound to diminish over time. (If we see today’s condition, this is exactly what has happened) Thus, something needed to be done to pass on the knowledge contained in the Vedas, in an easily sustainable and interesting way. At the same time, the events leading to the Mahabharatha warwere happening.Seizing the opportunity, Vedavyasa decided to two tasks at the same time:(a) to narrate the story of the war,(b) to include some knowledge of the Vedas.With this intention, he created the epic of Mahabharatha. If you see the contents of Mahabharatha, in addition to the stories, we can find innumerable places where philosophical andspiritual knowledge has been very cleverly placed.Take for example: the Yaksha prashna, Vidura Neeti, Shrikrishna Sandhana, Bhishma’s teachings to Yudhisthira, the entire Vana Parva where the Pandavas interact with various sages in the forest, etc etc. And of course, the Bhagavad Geeta.
By Ravi Bhakar
