The Mahabharata - an Annotated Bibliography

P. Lal

There is no full bibliography of books in English on, and translations of, the Mahabharata, though many histories of Indian literature (specially those by German scholars) give lists of books in footnotes or in Appendices. This bibliography is an attempt to fill that gap.

It arose as an ancillary activity to my English translation of the Mahabharata. It does not pretend to be complete, though it is fairly comprehensive.

Suggestions and additions will be gratefully received. I should like to acknowledge help received from Reverence A Huart, S.J., Librarian of St. Xavier's College, who allowed me to use the splendid materials on Orientalia in the Goethals Library. I have also made use of the Sanskrit College and Asiatic Society libraries in Calcutta. Often, however, specially in the pursuit of specialist points, gurus and friends who prefer to remain anonymous have been more helpful than institutions. I would like to mention specially Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterji, National Professor, for valuable additions and corrections after the bibliography's initial magazine appearance; Dr. W. Norman Brown, American Institute of Indian Studies Professor Frank Jones, Chairman, comparative Literature Department, University of Washington; Dr. J. Jordens, Department of Indian Studies, University of Melbourne; and Mr. O.P. Bhagat.

ARCHER, W.G., The Loves of Krishna, Allen & Unwin, 1957.

Keeper of the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and author of many books on Indian art including the Batsford Indian Painting and Modern Indian Art, Mr. W.G. Archer traces the Krishna story from the Upanishads through the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata- Purana) the lyrical allegory of the divine cowherd flute-player and the gopis), and the poems of Jayadeva (Gita-Govinda), Chandi Das, Surdas, Govind Das, and Vidyapati.

The chapter on "The Krishna of Painting" is useful, and mention is made of the "great folios" of the abridged, illustrated Mahabharata in Persian commissioned by Akbar, now in the palace library at Jaipur. "A separate volume with fourteen illustrations all concerned with Krishna is part of the great version now at Jaipur;" these have been reproduced in T.H. Hardley's book Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition: Volume IV, the Razm Namah (London, 1883). Mr. Archer reproduces two: "The Death of Balarama" by Basawan, and " The Death of Krishna" by Mukund. The book has 39 plates in all, the others depicting scenes from the Bhagavata- Purana.

There is a small error in this work of precise and loving scholarship. In his notes (p.117) Mr. Archer says, "It is unfortunate that Krishna's reasons for destroying the Yadava race are nowhere made very clear. The affront to the Brahmans is the immediate occasion for the slaughter but hardly its actual cause; and, if it is argued that the Yadavas must first be destroyed in order to render Krishna's withdrawal from the world complete, we must then assume that the Yadavas are in some mysterious way essential parts of Krishna himself. Such a status, however, does not seem to be claimed for them and none of the texts suggests that this is so. The slaughter, therefore, remains an enigma."

Though the Bhagavata-Purana does not give the cause for the slaughter, the Mahabharata emphatically does. Gandhari's curse in Book Eleven (The Weeping women), consigns Krishna and his race to destruction, because, though a relative of the Pandavas (his sister Subhadra is Arjuna's wife and his father is Kunti's brother), and a profound well-wisher of the Kauravas, he did not prevent the Kurukshetra carnage:

Yasmatparasparam ghnanto jnatayah Kurupandavah Upeksitaste govinda tasmaj-jnatinvadhisyasi Tvamapyupasthite varse sattrimse madhusudana Hatajnatirhatamatyo hataputro vanecarah Anathavadavijnato nidhanam samavapsyasi. (Section XXV)
[O Krishna, you could have stopped the war.
You had the tongue, you had the power.
I curse you, Krishna!
Wielder of the mace and discus,
I curse you!
Thirtysix years from now,
You will slaughter your kinsmen as my sons did theirs,
As the Pandavas did. Having slaughtered them,
You will wander in shame and die disgustfully.......]

ARNOLD EDWIN, Indian Idylls, London, 1883

Episodes from the Mahabharata in verse translation. Some other stories from the epic also translated. One of these is the story of Nala and Damayanti, and another the story of Savitri.

BASHAM, A.L., The Wonder that was India, Grove Press, New York, 2nd Edition, 1964.

An excellent, popular introduction to the civilization of pre- Muslim India, done with admiring affection. Professor Basham summarises the epic story, and quotes at length from a pleasing translation of the story of Nala and Damayanti.

BESWICK, ETHEL, Tales of Hindu gods and Heroes. Jaico Publishing House, Bombay, 1960.

Miss Beswick divides her book into four parts- (1) The Cosmic God, (2) The Creative Gods, (3) The Epics, (4) Various Stories. In each she tries to present, in simple and romanticised form, the essentials of the subject for the benefit of the lay Western reader. She glosses over unpalatable material ("Very little has been said of Kali or Durga or of the many degrading form of religious rites which have in so many cases sprung up in the passage of years.") Her re-telling of the Mahabharata story in about a hundred pages retains most of the fundamental elements, and is an extremely efficient summary. Her fourth section ("Various Stories") narrates two famous legends from the Mahabharata - Nala and Damayanti, and Savitri and Satyavan.

DANIELOU, ALAIN, Hindu Polytheism. Pantheon Books, New York, 1964.

A magnificent explication of the symbolic meanings of Hindu deities and religious rituals, with an appendix of "transcriptions of the Sanskrit texts which are quoted in translation in this work." There are 102 quotations from the Mahabharata in the book, mostly to describe gods and goddesses; along with a mass of fascinating other material, carefully dug up and superbly organised. Invaluable to any reader who wishes to make sense of the elaborate polytheism of the epic and of Hinduism in general. M. Danielou uses two different recensions of the Mahabharata when quoting, without mentioning which he uses when, thus creating an unnecessary confusion. "I happened to have at my disposal first one version and later the other." he explains. " I did not find the time or the courage to try to co-ordinate the two versions of this enormous work, which show endless variants."

DE BARY, WM. THEODORE (Ed), Approaches to the Oriental Classics: Asian Literature and Thought in General Education. Columbia University Press, New York, 1959.

This volume is a record of the "proceedings of a conference held at Columbia University, September 12 and 13, 1958." To which many distinguished orientalists and teachers of Asian courses in American colleges and universities were invited. Part I consists of essays and papers on "Oriental Classic and the Teaching of the Humanities, " Part II on "Some Great Books of the Oriental Traditions, " and Part III on "Practical Problems in the Teaching of the Oriental Humanities."

There are two essays on the Mahabharata: "Indian and Greek epics" by Robert Antoine, and "Comments on the Ramayana and Mahabharata" by George T. Artola. The first places the epics in their social and historical contexts and attempts and comparative assessment; the second is a short (and slight) presentation of the Indian epics' structure and influence.

DE SMET, R. and NEUNER, J., (Eds.) Religious Hinduism. St. Paul Publications, Allahabad, 2nd Rev. Ed., 1964.

A series of informed articles and essays by Jesuit Fathers, either resident in India or Indian citizens, examining the complete fabric of Hindu religion and culture as a prelude for "a dialogue in depth and sympathy" between Hinduism and Christianity. Reverend r. Antoine writes on the Mahabharata: his article consists largely of an admirable summary of the eighteen books.

DOWSON, JOHN, A classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History and Literature. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961.

This is the tenth edition of a work by a Professor of Hindustani who made an attempt "to supply the long-felt want of a Hindu Classical Dictionary." It appeared originally in Trubner's Oriental Series, and quickly acquired a well-deserved reputation as a dependable guide to Hindu mythology. It is an extremely satisfactory handbook to the characters in Mahabharata. In some respects, however, Dowson's Dictionary is badly out-of-date: the dramatist Bhasa is not listed, and the only translations of the Gita mentioned are those by Wilkins and J. Cockburn Thompson!

DUTT, MANMATHA NATH (Tr.), The Mahabharata. Elysium Press, Calcutta, 1895-1905.

This is the second complete translation, in three volumes, of the Mahabharata, by the Rector of Keshub Academy. It is the only one that gives a verse-by-verse rendering. Dutt follows the Kisari Mohan Ganguli version closely in many places, but is more prudish: Ganguli Latinises, Dutt omits. In Book I (Adi Parva), LXIII, " slokas 50 to 52 not translated for obvious reasons, " he explains; in the same book, CIV, slokas 14 to 20 are also "not translated for obvious reasons."

DUTT. ROMESH CHUNDER, The Ramayana and Mahabharata (Condensed into English Verse). Dent's Everyman's Library, 1910, reprinted 1944.

R.C. Dutt was "the first of his race to attain the rank of divisional commissioner" in the Indian Civil Service; he also received the companionship of the Indian Empire. His well-known translations of the two Sanskrit epics were finished in 1897; he wrote his "Translator's Epilogue" for Mahabharata version in 1898 in the University college, London. His selection of passages for translation is scrappy ( he begins with the tournament where Arjuna and Karna show their skills [Adi Parva] and ends with the horse sacrifice performed by Yudhisthira [Asvamedha Parva], leaving out much of the Adi Parva {"The Beginnings"] and the whole of the Mausala ["The Battle with Clubs"] Mahaprasthana ["The Great Journey"] and Svargarohana ["Heaven"] parvas.) He defends his decision by explaining that "A poem of ninety thousand couplets is more that what the average reader can stand; and the heterogeneous nature of its contents does not add to the interest of the work. If the religious works of Hooker and Jeremy Taylor, the philosophy of Hobbes and Locke, the commentaries of Blackstone and the ballads of Percy, together with the tractarian writings of Newman, Keble, and Pusey, were all thrown into blank verse and incorporated with the Paradise Lost, the reader would scarcely be much to blame if he failed to appreciate that delectable compound. A complete translation of the Mahabharata therefore into English verse is neither possible nor desirable........."

Dutt's choice of Locksley Hall hexameter as the best medium for verse translation of the Mahabharata- "the one finally adopted," he says, "was a nearer approach to the Sanskrit sloka than any other familiar English metre known to me" - delightfully if not successfully argued; the other interest is his character criticism in the style of A.C. Bradley, a contemporary, whose Shakespearean Tragedy appeared in 1894- of the epic's amazing variety of me and women.

The book has a useful, though out-dated, bibliography, and an introduction by S.K. Ratcliffe; it is dedicated to "The Right Hon. Professor F. Max Muller, who has devoted his lifetime to the elucidation of the learning, literature, and religion of ancient India."

GANGULI, KISARI (SIC) MOHAN (Tr.), The Mahabharata.

Bharata Karyalaya Press, Calcutta, 1888-1896. This complete and faithful translation- the first of the two complete renderings into English of the epic and the only edition now available- is the monumental accomplishment strangely referred to, by scholars and bibliographers alike, as "the P.C. Roy translation." Behind that error is a story as intriguing as that of the identity of Shakespeare's W. H. of the Sonnets. Pratap Chandra Roy was born in the village of Shanko in the Burdwan district of Bengal on 15 March 1842. His father was Ramjai Roy; his mother, Drabamai Devi, died when he was two and a half. He was brought up by a widow who worked for a Brahmin in the Khulna district. As a boy he would pick up coconuts thrown as offerings in the Ganga or left by the waterside, sell them, and with the money beg his foster mother to buy him books. Impressed, the Brahmin employer put him in a school.

When he grew up, he became a bookseller in Calcutta. By 1869 he had put by enough money to buy a small printing press and start a publishing concern. By the end of 1876 he had brought out a complete Bengali translation of the Mahabharata. Then a new idea fired him: the complete Mahabharata in English. His purpose was to unfold the richness of the Indian heritage to the British rulers and to foreigners in general; as his widow innocently explained in her epilogue, attached to the lat book in 1896, "If a knowledge of the mind of the people is of value to the administration of the country, who will deny the utility of an English translation of the Mahabharata to the British Government of India?" He knew his own English was not good enough; and press work kept him too busy anyway. Luck brought him Babu Kisari Mohan Ganguli, a man with a brilliant academic record in English; Ganguli was entrusted with the work of translating the epic while Roy went around collecting funds from "peasants and princes, Anglo-Indian officials and English and American sympathisers to warrant him in going forward"- for his ambition (in which he succeeded)' was to distribute the translated volumes free. His first wife died; he married again in 1886; in 1889 he was made, by Queen Victoria, a Companion of the Order of the British Empire; he died of an undiagnosed illness on 10 January 1895. His will directed that his property be sold and the money employed for three purposes - the completion of the English Mahabharata, the erection of a temple to Siva in his village, and the excavation of a tank there for the use of the villagers.

Babu Kisari Mohan Ganguli, who, "like a literary Atlas bore the heavy burden of the translation," gets mentioned only in the last volume of the English translation. Though he had no hand at all in the translation, Roy put his own name on the title page of the first nine volumes. The ambiguity that transformed a publisher into a translator and left K.M. Ganguli's glory unsung has, to my knowledge been spotted only by Ronald Inden and Maureen Patterson, compilers of the University of Chicago's Bibliography to South Asian Studies; by K.M. Nott in the Janus Press edition of the first two books of the Mahabharata: and by A.C. Macdonnell in his History of Sanskrit Literature, where the translation is listed in the bibliography as having been published at "the expense of P.C. Roy" (it was surely at K. M. Ganguli's expense!).

The "utility" was quickly noticed. Lord Dufferin sanctioned a grant of Rs. 11,000 (whose purchasing power equivalent today would be around $20,000), and Lord Ripon gave "a handsome contribution." Sir Rivers Thompson "was pleased to sanction a grant of Rs.5,000Sir Auckland Colvin gave Rs.2,000 when he was appointed the Lieutenant Governor of the North West Provinces; Sir Alfred Croft granted Rs.5000." The official list is augmented with American scholars and benefactors- Professor Lanman, Professor Maurice Bloomfield of Hopkins University, and others. But K.M. Ganguli's was entirely a labour of love. "My husband scarcely exaggerated the truth, " wrote P.C. Roy's widow, "when he used to say that ..... he was only the hand that did the work while lying on his death bed, he earnestly appealed to Babu Kisari Mohan to complete the undertaking. With tears in his eyes, Babu Kisari Mohan readily gave the assurance that was solicited, saying that he would not, on any account, give up the work."

It is, even by twentieth century standards, a splendid piece of dedicated work. The translation reads smoothly, and the translator's notes indicate the meticulous care he took to compare different recensions and to consult the various commentaries (he greatly favours Nilakantha's ). The supreme irony is that the K.M. Ganguli translation, now re-issued from Calcutta's Oriental Press in 11 volumes, nowhere mentions his name, but openly credits P.C. Roy as "translator and publisher" on the title page of each volume.

In his "Translator's Postscript," at the end of volume XI (1896), Ganguli explains that "Roy was against anonymity. I was for it." He was afraid no one person could finish "the whole of the gigantic work." "It was, accordingly, resolved to withhold the name of the translator." But hardly a fourth of the work had been accomplished when "an influential Indian journal came down upon poor Pratapa Chandra Roy and accused him openly of being a party to a great literary imposture"- that of posing as " the translator of Vyasa's work when, in fact, he was only the publisher." Ganguli continues: "Now that the translation has been completed, there can be no longer any reason for withholding the name of the translator. The entire translation is practically the work of one hand." Charu Chandra Mookerjee helped with portions of the Adi and Sabha Parvas; "about four forms of the Sabha Parva were done by Professor Krishna Kamal Bhattacharya."

GHOSAL, U.N., A History of Indian Political Ideas. Oxford University Press, 1959.

This work of painstaking scholarship is the only one of its kind. Dr. Ghoshal subjects the Mahabharata's Santi (Peace) and Anusasana (Advice) Parvas to a meticulous 70-page examination and emerges with a lucid presentation of the principal political ideas and theories in the epic. Both "straight wisdom" and "crooked wisdom" (as recommended in the epic) are carefully analysed.

GOULD, F.J., The Divine Archer. J.M.Dent, London, 1911.

The author, in a small book (103 pages), retells, presumably for children, one story from the Ramayana (the breaking of the bow at Sita's svayamvara), and two from the Mahabharata (Yudhisthira's moral examination by Yama near the pool, and the Savitri episode). Gould bases both on Sir Edwin Arnold's version" in Indian Idylls.

GREY, J.E.B., Indian Tales and Legends. O.U.P., 1961.

Clearly and touchingly tells the story of Nala and Damayanti.

HOPKINS, E. WASHBURN, The Great Epic of India. Scribners, New York, 1901.

Hopkins was Professor of Sanskrit at Yale University, and his study of the epic, which appeared in the Yale Bicentennial Publications series, sets an enviably high scholastic standard. With regard to the Mahabharata's philosophy ( to which Hopkins devotes 100 pages) and prosody (160), this is almost the last word on the subjects. Every point is copiously illustrated with quotations, until the book begins to have the appearance of a closely-argued tika by an orthodox Sanskrit pandit. Chapter V is on "The Origin and Development of the Epic" and Chapter VI on "Date of the epic" and Chapter VI on "Date of the Epic," and there is an extremely useful appendix on "Parallel Passages in the Two Epics," which lists 337 phrases selected, says Hopkins, "at haphazard, only to show the general base of epic phraseology." Hopkins' contention is that "The Pandu-epic, in its present form, was composed after the Greek invasion" (circa 400 B.C.)

HORRWITZ, ERNST, A Short History of Indian Literature. T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1907.

In this compact, extremely useful introduction to the history of Indian literature, which carries a preface by Rhys Davids, Horrwitz addresses himself "to the general reader who knows nothing or little of Eastern though...... This little book is complete in itself, and the text can be easily understood even without consulting the footnotes." Chapter IV describes the events leading to Kurukshetra war, and chapter V discusses " the Origin of the Mahabharata." The author's note promises : " A second part which is in preparation will deal with the Hindu Theatre."

KEITH, A. B., The Mythology of All Races, Vol. VI. New York, reprinted 1964.

One chapter deals with the gods of the Mahabharata.

LANGTON, MAURICE: The story of Kings Nala and Princes Damayanti, Mysore, 1950.

Verse translation from the Tamil of Puhalendi Pulavar of the 12th century A.D.

MACDONELL, ARTHUR A., A History of Sanskrit Literature, Munshi Ram Manohar Lal, 1958.

This is an Indian reprint of a well-known history whose fourth edition went out of print in 1913. Macdonell was Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford when the book first appeared (in 1900); the chapters on Vedic literature are excellent, but the epics get casual treatment, and the chapter on Sanskrit drama is disgracefully scrappy. The bibliographies attached to each chapter are thorough and most helpful. But there is little original or organised comment on the Mahabharata in the chapter devoted to the epic.

A name="mackenzie"> MACKENZIE, DONALD A., Indian Myth and Legend. London, no date.

A very useful introduction to Hindu mythology. One chapter is on the Divinities of the Epic Period. eleven chapters tell at length the story of the Mahabharata. Another four tell the story of Nala and Damayanti. Fine illustrations.

MADHAVANANDA SWAMI and R.C. MAJUMDAR (Eds), Great Women of India. Calcutta, 1953.

One chapter deals with the main women characters of the Mahabharata, and another with women characters in the stories of the Mahabharata.

MAJUMDAR, R.C. (General Editor), The History and Culture of the Indian People. Vol II (The Age of Imperial Unity). Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay 1951.

Dr. M.A. Mehendale discusses the historical importance of the epics in chapter XVI of the Second volume of a newly written ten-volume history of India. "It is now generally accepted," he says, "that the great battle between the Kauravas and Pandavas was a historical event which occurred some time between 1400 and 1000 B.C."

MEYER, J.K. Sexual Life in Ancient India. London, 1930 (tr. from the German)

The two volumes describe woman as depicted in the two Indian epics. Profuse quotations from the texts. A readable and useful book.

MONIER-WILLAMS, MONIER, Indian Wisdom, Or Examples of the Religious, Philosophical and Ethical Doctrines of the Hindus: With a Brief History of the Chief Departments of Sanskrit Literature, and some Account of the Past and Present Condition of India, Moral and Intellectual. W.H. Allen, London, 2nd Edition, 1876.

An extremely lucid book that gives a "good general idea of the character and contents of Sanskrit literature." It consists of fifteen lectures- the spoken quality gives the book its great readability-delivered in the course of Monier-Williams' "official" duties as Boden Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Oxford. Lecture XIII is devoted to a summary (with a few translated passages) of the Mahabharata; the footnotes are extremely illuminating. Lecture XII does the same with the Ramayana, and Lecture XIV is "The Indian Epics compared with each other and with the Homeric Poems."

MONIER-WILLAMS, MONIER, Story of Nala (An episode of the Mahabharata). Oxford University Press, 1860.

Monier-Williams provides the Sanskrit text, "with a copious vocabulary, grammatical analysis, and Introduction," and the Very Reverend Henry Hart Milman, Dean of St. Paul's, has a "metrical translation" (in trochee hexameter with a caesura) of the Nala and Damayanti episode alongside the Sanskrit text.

MULLER, MAX, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (so far as it illustrates the primitive religion of the Brahmans.) Williams & Norgak, London, 2nd Rev. Ed., 1860.

There is not much on the Mahabharata in this admirable study, and what little there is, is devoted to wondering how the five Pandava bothers, "who, if we are to believe the poet, were versed in all the sacred literature, grammar, metre, astronomy, and law of the Brahmans," could have been guilty of polyandry when the Brahminic law was plain: "There are many wives to a husband, but not many husbands to a wife" (veda-apyevam sruyate ekasya bahvyo jaya bhavanti/ na kasya eva behavah patayah samti), and how Pandu, again the violation of Brahminic law, had two wives ("The law does not prohibit polygamy, but it regards no second marriage as legal, and it reserves the privilege of being burnt together with the husband to the eldest and only lawful wife").

MULLICK, PROMATHA NATH (Rai Bahadur), The Mahabharata- as a History and Drama. Thacker Spink &Co. Calcutta, 1939.

In a long (407 pages), loosely organised book (in spite of its clear title), Rai Bahadur Mullick discusses the epic story and its background with sincere but diffuse enthusiasm. This volume is a companion to the author's earlier The Mahabharata, As it Was, Is, and Ever shall Be, and, like it, finds many parallels between the ethics of Valmiki and those of the New Testament. In his introduction, Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan says, "It will be a mistake to lay all the stress on the warlike or athletic aspects of Mahabharata for it speaks to us of the vast eternal background against which wars are lost or won, and kingdoms perish or survive," and recommends Rai Bahadur Mullick's book because the author "believes that a book which has fashioned the destiny of a large section of people must have some essential lessons for us."

There are nine illustrations, two from the library of the Maharaja of Jaipur ("The Maze, or Chakra-Formation of Drona" and "The Great Feast Before the Horse Sacrifice"), both part of the series commissioned by Akbar for the Persian translation of the Mahabharata called the Razm-namah. The other seven "were specially made under the direction of the author."

NARASIMHAN, C.V.(Tr.), The Mahabharata: An English Version based on Selected Verses. Columbia University Press, New York, 1965.

Done during time taken off from his exacting work as Under Secretary of the United Nations, Mr. Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan's 216 page version of the Mahabharata was prepared for the Columbia College Programme of Translations from the Oriental Classics. Workmanlike and readable (though not in contemporary idiom), it is the only one that takes advantage of the Poona Bhandarkar text (for nine books; the P.C. Roy text is used for the rest).

"By sticking to his purpose of giving "a straightforward narrative account of the main theme of the epic : the rivalry between the Pandavas and the Kauravas," Mr. Narasimhan forsakes the poetic beauties of the epic in favour of the hard core story. An appendix lists the verses selected as the basis for this very free "translation". The glossary has brief explanations of the Sanskrit names, and adds short appreciations of the important characters. Kisari Mohan Ganguli, in his translated English version, translated the franker portions of the epic-those dealing specifically with sexual details-into Latin; M.N. Dutta omitted them altogether, with a note defending the moral value of his decision, in his "complete" translation. Mr. C. V. Narasimhan omits them also. In attempting to retain the old-world flavour, Mr. Narasimhan in places unnecessarily slips into awkward rhetoric and archaism ("o King, I shall now dispel, once and for all, your apprehension lest some one may again challenge you to a gambling game"; "O Lord, console them with soothing words fraught with truth!"; "Availing yourself of that opportunity, and warned by a sign that I will make beforehand, you should slay him when he is in that difficult situation.")

NARAYAN, R.K. Gods, Demons, and Others. Heinemann, 1964.

Re-telling of legends from the Ramayana and Mahabharata by a popular Indian novelist in the English language.

NIVEDITA SISTER (Margaret E. Noble), Cradle Tales of Hinduism. Calcutta, reprinted.

Tells with simplicity and devotion the nuclear story of the Mahabharata and several other legends from the epic, including the story of Nala and Damayanti. Sister Nivedita also collaborated with Ananda K. Coomaraswamy in the writing of Myths of Hindus and Buddhists.

NIVEDITA SISTER Footfalls of Indian History. Calcutta, reprinted.

There is a chapter on the Final Recension of the Mahabharata.

NIVEDITA SISTER : The Web of Indian Life. Calcutta reprinted.

One chapter deals with the Indian sages.

NOTT, S.C.(Ed.), The Mahabharata: Selections from Adi Parva and Sambha (sic) Parva. The Janus Press, London, 1965.

"This volume is the first of four to be published at intervals," says the announcement on the jacket. "Though each may be considered as complete in itself. the four will form a set, and the story of the Pandavas and the Kurus will be carried on, in an abridged form, to the end." The other three volumes have not appeared yet. This volume (consisting of the first two books of the epic) is selected, edited and transcribed from Kisari Mohan Ganguli's complete translation of the Mahabharata in 1883. Mr. Nott provides a preface and useful glossary of names (acknowledging Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Garrett's Classical Dictionary of India as his major sources). the Appendix consists of comments, mostly laudatory, on the epic by A.R. Orage, taken from his book The New Age. the undistinguished line drawings, by Kate Adamson "were done with the help and advice of the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum." The proof-reading of Sanskrit names is atrocious. The American edition, 1965, says it is "printed in England at the Ditchling Press for Philosophical Library." In addition to the line drawings by Kate Adamson, it contains 4 black-and-white plates "reproduced by kind permission of the Victoria and Albert Museum." Opposite page 20: Nataraja, the Cosmic Dance of Siva, South India, 8th c.;p.52 Apsaras, Orissa, 13th c.;p.84 : Gandharva, Orissa, 13th c. ; p.116: Parvati, South India, 13th c.

OMAN JOSEPH CAMPBELL, The Great Indian Epics: The Ramayana and the Mahabharata. George Bell & Sons, 1894. Quoting from Prevost-Paradol's Essai sur l'histoire universelle, "Every race has in its history one grand achievement on which it hangs all its past and all its future : and the memory of which is a rallying cry and a pledge of prosperity. The Exodus, the Jews would say, the overthrow of the Medes, would the Persians say-the Median wars, the Greeks in their turn say will be recalled on all occasions to furnish arguments, political claims, rhetorical effects, patriotic encouragement in great crises, and in the end imperishable regrets." Oman says that "for the Indian people it is the great war ending with Kurukshetra, which is the central event of their history. It closes for them their golden age. Before that was a world of transcendent knowledge and heroic deeds; since then intellectual decay and physical degeneracy." Oman was Professor of Natural History in the Government College, Lahore, and his summaries of the two epics are efficient and vigorous. He makes constant use of K.M. Ganguli's translation of the Mahabharata (which had appeared in 1889, and which, like many others, he attributes mistakenly to P.C. Roy, though Roy was only the sponsor and publisher). He also makes use of other sources, particularly the first volume of Talboys Wheeler's History of India, which following a translation of the Mahabharata in the library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal supposed to have been done by H.H. Wilson, describes the death of Duryodhana in a version daringly different from the orthodox recension. The book has seven illustrations, the frontispiece being a Moghul miniature, printed in colour in Paris, showing the gambling match between the Pandavas and Kauravas; three appendices retell in brief compass the story of the Gita, the churning of the ocean, and Nala and Damayanti; and two interesting notes discuss the date of the epic's compilation, and the translation of the Mahabharata into Persian commissioned by the Moghul Emperor Akbar (a contemporary of Elizabeth I), and reported, says Oman, "from the standpoint of a bigoted Muslim," by the historian Abdul Kadir Badauni, in Tarikh-i-Badauni. The translation was called Razm-namah (Book of the Wars), and the Preface was by Akbar's biographer Shaikh Abdul Fazl ("God defend us," says Badauni, "from his infidelities and absurdities.") The translation was begun in 1582 and probably finished in 1588; it was ordered because, says Abul Fazl, "having observed the fanatical hatred prevailing between Hindus and Muslims, and convinced that it arose only from their mutual ignorance, the enlightened monarch wished to dispel the same by rendering the books of the former accessible to the latter."

PENZER, NORMAN A., Nala and Damayanti. A M. Philpot, London, 1926.

Penzer, who edited Somadeva's Katha-sarit-sagara (The Ocean of Story), narrates the Nala and Damayanti story with great lyrical charm and delicacy. There are ten exquisite miniatures in the Persian style by P. Zenker painted specially for this handsomely produced edition, which was limited to a thousand copies in England and America. Extremely useful is the Appendix, which has notes on various Sanskrit words "for the reader who knows practically nothing of Sanskrit literature or mythology."

PONSOT, MARIE (Tr.), Tales of India: Magical Adventures of Three Indian Princes. golden Press, New York, 1961.

This lavishly-produced book of tales "selected from the Mahabharata (sic)" is meant for children; it is printed in Italy and has splendid colour illustrations by Sergio Rizzato. But, whatever else it may be, translation it is not, and the distorted embroideries and fanciful alterations of Marie Ponsot on the epic's legends and myths are often grotesquely misleading. The Kaurava and Pandavas are turned into six princes (Durio, Iudistira, Adjuna, Dussas, Bimas, and Carna); Kunti is made "Khati", and Parasara becomes "Paric", Damayanti "Damiti". One illustration has Arabic characters on a throne, and another shows a stone image of the Buddha! The stories suffer worse mutilation.

PRAKASH BUDDHA: Political and Social Movements in Ancient Punjab. New Delhi, 1964.

The title gives no idea of the subject, but it is one of the few books, a scholarly one, that tries to historicise the myths of Mahabharata.

PUSALKAR, A.D. Studies in Epics and Puranas of India, Bombay, 1955.

Useful though the author's orthodox views spoil his scholarship here and there. Highly annotated essays.

RADHAKRISHNAN, S. (ED.), History of Philosophy Eastern and Western, Vol.1. Allen & Unwin, London, 1952.

Contains a scholarly account by Dr. S.K. De of the Mahabharata as moksa-sastra (pp.85-106),

RAGHAVAN, V., The Mahabharata (Condensed in the Poet's own words). G.A.Natesan & Co., Madras, 1935.

An extremely helpful, low-priced, pocket-sized paperback with the Sanskrit text and a closely literal English translation side by side. this book appeared first in 1935, quickly ran into four editions, and since then has mysteriously stayed out of print. The selections from Vyasa's original were made by Pandit A.M. Srinivasachariar ("it is easy," says the foreword, "to criticise the result and express one's surprise at the omission of certain passages and the inclusion of others"). The translation is by Dr. V. Raghavan, an acknowledged authority on Sanskrit literature. "Every effort has been made to render the English translation both faithful and readable...Such 'frequents' as tada (then), tatah (afterwards) and tatra (there), except where they definitely contribute to the sense-these are left untranslated." Though it over-colours the religious element in the epic and plays down the narrative, Dr. Raghavan's Mahabharata does not emasculate the original: it retains all the casual, precise beauty of nature description, and the unembarrassed statement of intimate biological detail.

There is a useful "Index to the Proper Names Occurring in the Text," and a concise note on "the Message of the Mahabharata" by the translator ("Nothing less than truth and Right, Satya and Dharma, form the theme of the great epic"). The ex-President of the Indian Republic, S. Radhakrishnan, then a Professor, contributes a Foreword in which the interprets the Mahabharata as an attempt to illustrate the truth that "the mystery of life is a creative sacrifice".

RAJAGOPALACHARI, C.,, Mahabharata. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1951.

The Mahabharata of "Rajaji" (as the elder statesman is affectionately addressed in India) has proved to be extremely popular in this cheap. paperback edition (58,000 copies in four years, 1951-55). "Rajaji" has played a significant role in India's political life: he was associated with Mahatma Gandhi in the Civil disobedience movement against the British, was Chief Minister of Madras, Governor of West Bengal, Home Minister of India, the first Indian Governor General of the country, and founder, in his eighties in 1960, of the Swatantra (Freedom) Party.

His version of the Mahabharata is the work of a practical moralist (he has a book on Marcus Aurelius). In 1943, he decided "to employ some of the scanty leisure of a busy life" to cover the Mahabharata narrative in a series of 107 stories designed for Tamil children. The re-telling was done for the Tamil weekly Kalki, and the first story dealt with Sisupala. Later he Englished these stories, a "substantial party" of the translation from Tamil being done by two "kind friends," P. Seshadri and S. Krishnamurti. "Every sentence had for me a fragrance of the living past. This quality can never be preserved or brought out in an English translation." This English version of a Tamil re-telling is sometimes mistaken for a translation from Vyasa's Sanskrit. The stories are efficiently told, but--like all children's Ramayanas and Mahabaratas in India, including the famous Bengali ones of Ramananda Chatterjee--heavily edited, "disinfected," and prettified. Little is left to the imagination, and too many obvious explanatory adjectives ("harsh words," "aggressive vanity," "hard discipline," "perverse flouting," "deeply agitated," quaking hearts," "spellbound silence," "wily stratagems," and so on) tend to block the steady epic flow.

RAMAN, A.S. Tales from Indian Mythology. Kutub-Popular, Bombay, 1961.

With an expansive imagination, Mr. Raman, editor of a popular illustrated Indian weekly, retells eleven peripheral myths and legends from the Mahabharata, and one that is a part of the hard core narrative ("The Birth of Karna"). The eleven are: "The Marriage of Parvati," "Savitri's Triumph," "The Childhood of Sita" (the entire Ramayana story is included in the Mahabharata), "Kaveri and Agastya," "The Birth of Krishna," "Yama and Markandeya," "Devyani and Sarmishta," "The Fall of Nahusha," "Ganga and Shantanu," "Indra and Ahalya," and "Tapati and Samvarna,"

In his foreword, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan says, "This book, written with a nervous refinement of style, will be a great boon to all those who suffer from cultural illiteracy," A single sentence comment in a letter to the author by C. Rajagopalchari, reproduced on the back jacket, says : "You have put my Mahabharata into (sic) the shade."

RAPSON, E.J.(Ed), The Cambridge History of India, Vol.I Cambridge University Press, 1922.

E.J. Rapson was professor of Sanskrit at the University of Cambridge, and for this volume he engaged the services of many distinguished Sanskritists, among them A. Berriedale Keith, L.D. Barnet, and E. Washburn Hopkins (who writes on the Sutras and the epic poems). In chapter XI, Professor Hopkins does an admirable study of the two epics, stressing the Mahabharata; his account of the social life mirrored in the epic is compact, lucid, and informative, and his analysis of the family conflict shows much psychological perceptivity : "The cousins called Pandus first excited the jealousy of the Kurus when the latter were obliged to come south and after tokens of submission to the Pandu King Yudhistira, who had crowned himself as emperor and performed the horse-sacrifice [not the horse-sacrifice, aswamedha, but the rajasuya is presumably meant] establishing this title......... The somewhat uncouth Pandus, who are described as good examples of nouveaux riches, flaunting in the eyes of their guests all the evidence of their wealth and making the lowly but aristocratic Kurus objects of ridicule, despite their sudden rise to power were not yet adepts in courtly arts........."

REED, ELIZABETH a., Hindu Literature; or the Ancient Books of India. S.C. Griggs & Co., Chicago, 1891.

After tracing the development of Sanskrit Literature from the Vedas to the Upanishads, Elizabeth Reed, who was a member of the Philosophical Society of Great Britain, re-tells some of the important parts of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. For the latter, she depends largely on Talboys Wheeler's first volume of History of India. The last chapters discuss the Puranas and the cult of Krishna.

RICE, EDWARD P., The Mahabharata : Analysis and Index. Oxford University Press, 1934.

"The multifariousness of the contents of the epic," says the Reverend Edward P. Rice in his Preface, "makes it difficult to locate any particular incident, legend or discussion of which one is in search.... What has been needed is a ma of this jungle-a plan of paths and by ways through it," For the average reader, this book is the best concise Mahabharata map in English, surpassed only by the late Dr. Jacobi's magnificent German Index: it should, however, be supplemented by Sorensen's comprehensive Mahabharata Concordance. An Index of names and subjects in the Mahabharata is included: the precise and enormously helpful references are to Manmatha Nath Dutt's three-volume English translation. There is an introductory chapter called "The Universe of Being," describing the metaphysical conceptions embodied in the epic. The brief foreword--a ten-line paragraph by L.D. Barnett, translator of Mahendravarman's Sanskrit one act play. Matta-vilasa-Prahasana--describes the book justly as "an admirable piece of careful and scholarly work."

ROBINSON. HERBERT SPENCER and KNOX WILSON: Myths and Legends of All Nations, Bantam paperback.

There is a useful and interesting chapter on the Myths and Legends of India. It summarises the Mahabharata story and the story of Sakuntala.

ROY, BIREN, The Mahabharata. D.K. Mukherji, Calcutta, 1958.

"This book is the result," says the author's preface, "of the interest evinced by a large number of my foreign friends" in Indian philosophy and culture. Mr. Roy attempts to satisfy that interest by presenting them with a condensed re-telling of "the literary monster," the Mahabharata of 100,000 slokas. There is an introduction and a glossary of Indian terms, but the style of the author. who at the time of publication was a Member of Parliament, is utterly undistinguished.

ROY, DWIJENDRA CHANDRA (Compiler), Tales from the Mahabharata. Bharat Karyalaya, Calcutta, 2nd Edition, 1912.

A collection of seventeen stories (including those of Upamanyu, Usinara, Gautama and Mudgala), taken from the Kisari Mohan Ganguli translation of the Mahabharata, and revised and re-told for children. The compiler's wife was the grand-daughter of Pratap Chandra Roy, the sponsor and publisher of the Ganguli translation. Dwijendra Roy wrongly credits P.C. Roy with the translation. There is a long Preface by F.I. Gould, "lecturer and demonstrator for the Moral Education League."

SADARJOSHI, G.A. Acharya Drona: A Human Drama from the Mahabharata. Alpha-Beta. Calcutta 1963.

A play based on an episode in the epic.

SUBRAMANIAM, KAMALA. Mahabharata. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1965.

A popular re-telling of the epic story, considerably condensed.

SUBRAMANIAM, M.V. Vyasa and Variations: The Mahabharata Story. Higginbothams, Madras, 1967.

A" presentation" of the epic story as told by Villi in Tamil, Kumara Vyasa in Kannada, Bhasa, Bhattanarayana, Magha and Bharavi.

SUKTHANKER, V.S. On the Meaning of the Mahabharata, Bombay, 1957.

Four lectures on the epic. Learned and yet clear to one not learned. Calls to mind Bradley's lectures on Shakespearean Tragedy.

SWAMI PRABHAVANANDA and CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD, The Song of God: Bhagavata-Gita. The new American Library, New York, 9th Edition, 1962.

This popular, readable translation of the Gita section in the Bhisma Parva of the Mahabharata contains a useful ten page note on "Gita and Mahabharata." Explaining the role of the Gita in the epic.

SYKES, MARJORIE: The Story of the Mahabharata, Orient Longmans.

Simplified from the original of Channing Arnold.

VORA, DHAIRYABALA P., Evolution of Morals in the Epics (Mahabharata and Ramayana). popular Book Depot, Bombay, 1959.

"Unlike the Vedic era," says Dr. Vora in his preface, "the Epic period has not attracted the scholars of Indian history and culture : and yet the age of Epics, in the history of India, represents an era to which can be traced the origin and evolution of the Hindu concept of morality." Evolution of Morals is a work of great scholarship, and Dr. Vora gives copious references in support of his contentions while discussing promiscuity, polyandry, premarital sex relations, fidelity in wedlock, marriage taboos, and the status of women. There are also chapters on the caste system, the theory of Karma, and a long account of "ethical development," in the Mahabharata, which includes an interesting bit on the practice of meat-eating in the epic period.

VRIES, JAN DE: Heroic Song and Heroic Legend. Oxford Paperback.

There is a chapter on the Epic of Indians and Persians, rather sketchy.

WHEELER, J. TALBOYS, The History of India. (Vol.I: The Vedic Period and the Mahabharata). N. Trjibner & Co., London, 1867. This extraordinary out-of print history, summarizing the Mahabharata in 576 pages, has itself an extraordinary history. Talboys Wheeler was Assistant Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department, and Secretary to the Indian Record Commission. With these official posts he combined an amateur (but profound interest) in history, and published, among other volumes, the well-known The Geography of Herodotus.

He projected a three volume history of India, the first to deal with the Vedic and the Mahabharata period, the second "to exhibit the traditions to be found in the Ramayana," and the third "to be drawn from the more salient points in Sanskrit and Mussalman literature." The whole would "thus form a resume of the History of India from the earliest period to the rise of British power." The project eventually developed into a five-volume history. Wheeler realized very early the gigantic nature of the work involved in the first volume : digesting the Mahabharata to manageable proportions would probably, he confesses, "have proved to be the labour of lifetime." A curious bit of luck favoured him. On going through the library catalogue of the newly founded Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta, he noticed an entry under the heading of Bhagavad-Gita, and sent in a slip for its requisition. To his "surprise and gratification," he received a manuscript whose paper was much "embrowned by age" and seeming "to have been at least fifty years in existence." Very illegibly written, it was actually "a manuscript translation of the more important parts of the Mahabharata, which was lodged in the Library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal many years ago, and which there is reason to believe was drawn up by late Professor H.H. Wilson." It had apparently been placed under the heading of Gita by mistake. He had it copied and indexed in "nine volumes folio" (which are still in the Calcutta library), and used it as the basis of his historical study. He was also helped by a young Sanskrit scholar, Baboo Obenash Chunder Ghosh, who supplied "oral translations of such portions of the poem as had been omitted from the manuscript in question, together with many popular interpretations of the ancient story which are given by the Pundits to their native audiences." Some idea of Wheeler's precise and painstaking work may be had from knowledge of the fact that the "Contents" alone takes up 72 pages, listing in detail all the main incidents in the narrative, and the "Index" (41 pages in double column, microscopic 6 pt.) lists each character's exploits and each subject's aspects with truly incredible thoroughness. There are, in addition to readable text that serves both as explication and critical commentary on the summarized portions of the Mahabharata, marginal synopses on each page; and a great deal of Wheeler's charm lies in his unwittingly witty, indignantly unfunny and tangentially illuminating footnotes. He is not above such remarks as : "As for the myth of the five Pandavas being five Indras, it is simply trash." (p. 134). "Duryodhana is said to have made an iron image of Bhima to try his strength upon it; or he may have made an ordinary figure-head to knock about as a manifestation of his hatred towards the original. In Mr. Dickens' novel 'The Old Curiosity Shop', Quilp, the evil character of the story purchases an old wooden figure of an Admiral, to represent Kit, whom he hates; and he strikes and mutilates the image accordingly. The incident is true to human nature..... A mob will in like manner burn the effigy of the object of their destruction." (p. 363). "The story of the young Prince who had a thousand girl wives, all exactly sixteen years of age, and all sporting together with their husband in a beautiful garden, is a curious exaggeration of the Oriental idea of happiness, in which women are regarded as objects of affection." (pp. 417-418). Wheeler even makes the utterly untenable suggestion that a part of the story of Duryodhana was "borrowed from the Koran." This would place the composition of some parts of the Mahabharata to the eight century A.D.!

WILKINS, W. J., Hindu Mythology, Vedic and Puranic. Calcutta, 2882.

A lucid account of the evolution of Hindu pantheon. The chapter on the avataras of Vishnu tells the story of Krishna and his association with the Mahabharata heroes.

ZAEHNER, R.C., Hinduism Oxford University Press, 1962.

This concise introduction to Hinduism by the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics in the University of Oxford is published in the Home University Library of Modern Knowledge series. Lucidly and pleasantly written, critical account of the main aspects of Hinduism, and the chapter divisions are organized on their basis ("Veda," "Brahman," "Moksa," "Good," "Dharma," "Bhakti,"). The last chapter, "Yudhisthira Returns," is a carefully argued comparative presentations of Gandhian Dharma, with Gandhi personified as a twentieth century Yudhisthira. The chapter "Dharma" fascinatingly discusses the ethics of the Mahabharata in terms of a conflict between Yudhisthira's private conscience and his obedient acceptance of Brahminical doctrines (and Krishna's not-always-straight advice). The importance of the concept of Karma in the epic is well analysed. One small error creeps into this excellent bird's-eye survey : Professor Zaehner twice mentions the exile of "thirteen years" of the Pandavas, and the "one more year they have to live in concealment." But Sakuni in the Sabha-Parva (Book II: The Assembly) specifically says "dvadasa vatsaran" (twelve years) with the thirteenth ("trayodasham") year to be spent incognito.

AUROBINDO, Sri, Valmiki. Pondicherry Ashrama, 1956.
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CHARLU, P. ANUNDA, Virtue's Triumph, or the Mahabharata. Calcutta, 1984.
ELIOT, CHARLES, Hinduism and Buddhism. London, 2nd Edition, 1948.
FARQUHAR, J.N., An Outline of the Religious Literature of India, Oxford, 1920.
FAUSBOLL, V., Indian Mythology, According to the Mahabharata in Outline. Oriental Religions Series, Luzac, Vol.I, 1903.
GAJENDRAGADAKAR, S.N., Studies in Mahabharata Similes. (Unpublished thesis).
GOKHALE, B.G., A History of Indian Culture, Asia, 1952.
GUERBER, H.A., The Book of the Epic. Harrap, 1919.
HASTINGS, R., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Edinbur12 volumes, 1908-20.
HELD, G.H., The Mahabharata. Amsterdam, 1935.
HOLTZMANN, A., Das Mahabharata. Gottingen, 4 volumes, 1922.
ADOLF HOLTZMANN: INDISCHE SAGEN, German Verse translations of Selected Passages. (1845-47)
HOPKINS, E.W., Epic Mythology. Strassburg, 1915.
HOPKINS, E.W., The Religions of India. Boston, 1895.
JACOBI, H., Mahabharata, Inhaltsangabe. Bonn, 1903.
JOHNSON, FRANCIS, Readings from the Mahabharata. London, 1855.
KEITH, A. BERRIEDALE, A History of Sanskrit Literature Oxford, 2nd Edition, 1958.
MAJUMDAR, B.C., Phallus Worship in the Mahabharata Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1907.
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OLDENBERG, H. Das Mahabharata, Seine Eutstehung, Sein Inhalt, Seine Form. Gottingen, 1922.
RADHAKRISHNAN, S., Indian philosophy. London, 2 volumes, 1934.
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RENOU, LOUIS, Religions of Ancient India. London, 1953.
SORENSEN, S., Index to names in the Mahabharata, with short Explanations and a Concordance. Delhi, 2nd Edition, 1963.
SARMA, D.S., A Primer of Hinduism. Madras, 1927.
SEEGER. ELIZABETH, The Five Brothers, The Story of the Mahabharata. New York, 1948.
SHARMA, R.K. Elements of Poetry in the Mahabharata. University of California Publications in Classical Philology, Vol. 20, University of California, Berkeley, 1964.
SIDHANTA, N.K., Heroic Age of India, a Comparative Study. London, 1929.
SRIMAL, JUGAL, Mahabharata. Jatiya Sanskrity Parishad, Calcutta, 1967.
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WILSON, H.H., Essays on the Religion of the Hindus. London, 1862.
WINTERNITZ, M., "Ganesa in the Mahabharata," in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1898.
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APTE, V.S., The Student's Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1963. (Has an invaluable section on Sanskrit prosody).
DEVASTHILAI, JOSHI and KULKARNI, The Student's New Sanskrit Dictionary. Keshav Bhikaji Dhawale, 2nd Edition, 1955.
MONIER-WILLIAMS, MONIER, Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Oxford, New Edition, 1963. (The most exhaustive dictionary into English, full of illuminating references based on a study of comparative philosophy).

(1) The Calcutta edition, Asiatic Society; the Editio Princeps, in Nagari character (quarto); 4 volumes, 1834-39.
(2) The Bombay edition, 1863.
(3) Edition in Bengali characters, published under the auspices of the Maharajadhiraj Mahtabchand of Burdwan, in both original Sanskrit (reprinted in Bengali characters of the Asiatic Society edition) and Bengali translation by Gopaldhan Churamani and Saradaprasad Jnananidhi; around 1863; quarto.
(4) The Madras edition, re-edited with tika by Nilakantha Govinda, 1890.
(5) The Southern Recension, 18 volumes, critically edited by P.P.S. Shastri, and published by Ramaswamy Sastrulu & Sons, Madras, 1932.
(6) The Poona Recension (popularly called the "Bhandarkar edition") 1927-65, easily the most authoritative, a painstaking labour of scholarly love; the first critical edition, completed in 1966.
(7) Earlier edition of the Southern Recension, from the Vani Vilasa Press, Srirangam.
(8) Complete Mahabharata, with Hindi translation, Gita Press, Gorakhpur, 8 vols.
(9) Edition in Bengali characters, Panchanan Tarkaratna, Bangabasi Press, 2 folio vols.