Mahabharata

Published Aug. 19, 2012

ISBN:
9788172763688

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4 stars (1 review)

Mahabharata is a historical book retold by C. Rajagopalachari. It was first published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in 1958. This book is an abridged English retelling of Vyasa's Mahabharata. Rajaji considered this book and his Ramayana to be his greatest service to his countrymen. As of 2001, the book had sold over a million copies.

1 edition

A solid telling

4 stars

As a big fan of the Mahabharata, I enjoyed Rajagopalachari's telling of the epic. His writing style is poetic and lyrical, and he does a great job conveying the wonder and majesty of the story.

For those looking for a pure translation, this may not be the work for them as Rajagopalachari likes to add his own insights and point out the morals of various stories (I personally enjoyed these observations, but it isn't part of the original work). Something else to note is that illustrious characters (namely Krishna and Arjuna) are referred to by many many names, so it can be somewhat difficult at times to understand who is being spoken about (I think this happens in the original sanskrit as well, so I don't blame Rajagopalachari for this).