Tales of the Mahabharata

The Mahabharata tells of the Kurushetra War and the battle between the Pandavas and Kauravas. Within the Mahabharata is the classic text the Bhagavad Gita – the immortal discourse of Sri Krishna to his disciple Arjuna.

arjunas-chariot-mahabharata

Arjuna’s chariot from the Mahabharata

The Mahabharata is rich in tales of gods and heroes, mystics and demons, and it is through these tales that a profound spiritual message unfolds. It is the world’s greatest epic poem, with over 200,000 individual verse lines. Within this epic are innumerable fascinating and illumining stories. This is a small selection of some of the best stories.

Stories from The Mahabharata

by Sri Chinmoy

  1. The Source of the Mahabharata
  2. The Gita begins
  3. The Family Tree
  4. Arjuna’s choice
  5. Ashwatthwama
  6. Balarama
  7. Dhritarashtra
  8. In the Forest
  9. Vishma’s Birth
  10. Yayati

 

This selection of tales retold by Sri Chinmoy is fascinating because of what the author brings to their telling. Firstly, he is a storyteller, and the stories are ones which he learned as a child in his native India. They are told with all the charm of the spoken world and with some of the wide-eyed wonder with which he must first had heard them. Secondly, he is a poet, and his style, simple but lyrical, matches the subtlety and resonance of the original which was, after all, conceived as an epic poem. Finally, and most important of all, Sri Chinmoy is a contemporary spiritual teacher whose depth of vision goes straight to the heart of the stories, bringing out their inner message, their very essence. It is this insight which makes his versions of these tales so beautiful and so memorable.

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