ISSN:
0080-4401
Source:
Cambridge Journals Digital Archives
Topics:
History
Notes:
This word is a combination of mahá, great, and bhárata, supporter. Bhárata is the ancient name of northern Hindustan, and was derived from a celebrated early monarch. This ‘great supporter’ poem extends in length to about 215,000 longlines, as Professor Monier Williams of Oxford has observed. Milton's ‘Paradise Lost’ only contains about 10,600. Even the voluminous Spenser's ‘Fairy Queen’ has not more than some 30,000. It is ascribed to a celebrated ancient Sage, who is also recorded to have compiled the Vedas (i.e, books of knowledge), and to have written thePuranas (i.e. ‘ancient’ books of the Hindu religions), which belong to phases of religious thought subsequent to the Vedic but professing to be associated with the Vedas. As his name simply means ‘collector or compiler,’ it is suggestive of his being mythical. Introductory recitals, in the poem itself, assign it to Vyasa, just as Washington Irving ascribes his ‘History of New York’ to Knickerbocker. Vaisampayana is said to have recited it to a king, and may have been the author. Modern commentators of late years seem generally to have assigned it to several authors. Comparing it, however, with the Waverley novels, as the work of one man, it does not seem beyond the capacity of a single author. Fifteen years’ labour, about the time bestowed by Gibbon on his ‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ would complete the work at the rate of some fifty lines per diem, allowing for holy days. It is written in what is styled the classical Sanscrit.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3677872
