It Is A Transformation Of An Ancient Legend Into A Modern Novel. In This Process, It Has Gained Rational Credibility And A Human Perspective. The Main Incident, The Bharata War, Symbolic Of The Birthpangs Of A New World-Order, Depicts A Heroic But Vain Effort To Arrest The Disintegration And Continue The Prevailing Order. It Is Viewed From The Stand Points Of The Partisan Participants And Judged With Reference To The Objective Understanding Of Krishna. Narration, Dialogue, Monologue And Comment All Are Employed For Its Presentation. Shot Through With Irony, Pity And Understanding Objectivity, The Novel Ends With The True Tragic Vision Of Faith In Life And Hope For Mankind.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883-1896.

“Bhishma,” the sixth book of the eighteen-book epic The Maha•bhárata, narrates the first ten days of the great war between the Káuravas and the Pándavas. This first volume covers four days from the beginning of the great battle and includes the famous “Bhágavad•gita (“The Song of the Lord”), presented here within its original epic context. In this “bible” of Indian civilization the charioteer Krishna empowers his disciple Árjuna to resolve his personal dilemma: whether to follow his righteous duty as a warrior and slay his opponent relatives in the just battle, or to abstain from fighting and renounce the warrior code to which he is born.

Epic: Maha·bhárata The Maha·bhárata tells the tale of the epic battle between the Pándavas and the Káuravas for the thrown. It begins with the famous game of dice between the Pándavas and the Káuravas, which sets the scene for the war that will lie at the center of the Maha·bhárata epic. But even after the war is ostensibly over when the heroic but flawed king of the Káuravas is dishonor­ably defeated in battle by his arch enemy, the extended family is still wracked in conflict leaving survivors, victors and vanquished struggling to comprehend their loss. Perhaps the most enigmatic philosophical text from ancient India, the final book in the set, “The Book of Liberation” is presented as the teachings of Bhishma as he lies dying on the bat­tlefield in the aftermath of war. Included in this set: Maha·bhárata Book II: The Great Hall Translated by Paul Wilmot. 588 pages / 978-0-8147-9406-7 Maha·bhárata Book III: The Forest Volume 4 Translated by William Johnson. 374 pages / 978-0-8147-4278-5 Maha·bhárata Book IV: Viráta Translated by Kathleen Garbutt. 516 pages / 978-0-8147-3183-3 Maha·bhárata Book V: Preparations for War Volume 1 Translated by Kathleen Garbutt. Foreword by Gurcharan Das. 720 pages / 978-0-8147-3191-8 Maha·bhárata Book V: Preparations for War Volume 2 Translated by Kathleen Garbutt. 760 pages / 978-0-8147-3202-1 Maha·bhárata Book VI: Bhishma Translated by Alex Cherniak. Foreword by Ranajit Guha. Volume 1 (Including the “Bhagavad Gita” in Context) 615 pages / 978-0-8147-1696-0 Maha·bhárata Book VI: Bhishma Volume 2 Translated by Alex Cherniak. 550 pages / 978-0-8147-1705-9 Maha·bhárata Book VII: Drona Volume 1 Translated by Vaughan Pilikian. 473 pages / 978-0-8147-6723-8 Maha·bhárata Book VII: Drona Volume 2 Translated by Vaughan Pilikian. 470 pages / 978-0-8147-6776-4 Maha·bhárata Book VIII: Karna Volume 1 Translated by Adam Bowles 604 pages / 978-0-8147-9981-9 Maha·bhárata Book VIII: Karna Volume 2 Translated by Adam Bowles. 684 pages / 978-0-8147-9995-6 Maha·bhárata Book IX: Shalya Volume 1 Translated by Justin Meiland. 371 pages / 978-0-8147-5706-2 Maha·bhárata Book IX: Shalya Volume 2 Translated by Justin Meiland. 470 pages / 978-0-8147-5737-6 Maha·bhárata Books X & XI: “Dead of the Night” and “The Women” Translated by Kate Crosby. 350 pages / 978-0-8147-1727-1 Maha·bhárata Book XII: Peace (Part 2: The Book of Liberation) Volume 3 Translated by Alex Wynne. 540 pages / 978-0-8147-9453-1

The second-longest poem in world literature, this is an epic tale, replete with legends, romances, theology, and metaphysical doctrine written in Sanskrit. One of the foundational elements of Hindu culture, this work in its entirety consists of 75,000 stanzas in eighteen books, and this volume marks the resumption of its first complete modern English translation.--From book jacket.

Ancient India, like ancient Greece boasts of two great Epics. One of them, the Maha-bharata, relates to a great war in which all the warlike races of Northern India took a share, and may therefore be compared to the Iliad. The great war which is the subject of this Epic is believed to have been fought in the thirteenth or fourteenth century before Christ. The war thus became the centre of a cycle of legends, songs, and poems in ancient India, the vast mass of legends and poetry, accumulated during centuries, was cast in a narrative form and formed the Epic of the Great Bharata nation, and therefore called the Maha-bharata. The real facts of the war had been obliterated by age, legendary heroes had become the principal actors, and, as is invariably the case in India, the thread of a high moral purpose, of the triumph of virtue and the subjugation of vice, was woven into the fabric of the great Epic.

This second half of Bhishma describes the events from the beginning of the fifth day till the end of the tenth of the great battle between the Káuravas and the Pándavas. Despite grandfather Bhishma’s appeal to conclude peace with the Pándavas, Duryódhana continues the bloody battle. The key strategist is general Bhishma, commander of the Káurava forces. Even though he is compelled to fight on the side of the Káuravas, Bhishma’s sympathies are with the Pándavas. After the ninth day of war, when Bhishma has wreaked havoc with their troops, the Pándavas realise that they will be unable to win as long as invincible Bhishma is alive. Bhishma willingly reveals to them how he can be destroyed. Strictly observing the warrior code, he will never fight with Shikhándin, because he was originally born a woman. Bhishma advises the Pándava brothers that Árjuna should strike him from behind Shikhándin’s back, and they follow the grandfather’s advice.