"It is a deep and noble forest, abounding in delicious fruits and fragrant
flowers, shaded and watered by perennial springs."
Though parts of the Mahâ-Bhârata, or story of the great war, are of great
antiquity, the entire poem was undoubtedly collected and re-written in the
first or second century A. D. Tradition ascribes the Mahâ-Bhârata to the
Brahman Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa.
The Mahâ-Bhârata, unlike the Râmâyana, is not the story of some great
event, but consists of countless episodes, legends, and philosophical
treatises, strung upon the thread of a single story. These episodes are
called Upakhyanani, and the five most beautiful are called, in India, the
five precious stones.
Its historical basis is the strife between the Aryan invaders of India and
the original inhabitants, illustrated in the strife between the sons of
the Raja Pandu and the blind Raja, Dhrita-rashtra, which forms the main
story of the poem.
Though marred by the exaggerations peculiar to the Hindu, the poem is a
great treasure house of Indian history, and from it the Indian poets,
historical writers, and philosophers have drawn much of their material.
The Mahâ-Bhârata is written in the Sanskrit language; it is the longest
poem ever written, its eighteen cantos containing two hundred thousand
lines.
It is held in even higher regard than the Râmâyana, and the reading of it
is supposed to confer upon the happy reader every good and perfect gift.