Mahabharata
The
Mahabharata or
Mahābhārata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the
Ramayana. Besides its epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kaurava and the Pandava princes, the
Mahabharata contains philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or
purusharthas. Among the principal works and stories in the
Mahabharata are the Bhagavad Gita, the story of Damayanti, an abbreviated version of the Ramayana, and the Rishyasringa, often considered as works in their own right. Traditionally, the authorship of the
Mahabharata is attributed to Vyasa. There have been many attempts to unravel its historical growth and compositional layers. The oldest preserved parts of the text are thought to be not much older than around 400 BCE, though the origins of the epic probably fall between the 8th and 9th centuries BCE. The text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta period. The title may be translated as "the great tale of the Bhārata dynasty".