The Mahabharata is the epic history of an entire people, a vast and mythic universe dreamed out of the land of India and explored by countless storytellers over thousands of years. I have long loved these stories, but have only recently begun to tell them myself. Here are some of the results of my journeys into this wild and ever-unfolding landscape.

A poet, an elephant-headed god and a king astray in a forest: so begins the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic shot through with the wisdom of ancient sages and the ten thousand sorrows and joys of being alive on this earth. In some ways it is not possible either to begin or to finish hearing this story, for it is the story of the world; nevertheless the spark is struck, the word is spoken, and our journey begins.​

Photo: Sunrise on Mount Kalindi in the Himalayas by Sharada Prasad

A king is cursed by a deer, flowers fall from the sky, a queen gives birth to a hundred sons at the same time: it's just another impossibly regular day in the world of the Mahabharata epic, a world that looks very much like our own.

Photo: Los Angeles Museum of Art

Can there be friendship between different social classes? The story of the wizard-like teacher Drona is a rumination on friendship, revenge, and power set within the larger tapestry of this epic-- and its events will have far-reaching effects on every character in the story.

​Who's that stepping out of the bonfire? It's Draupadi, the princess who will change the world permanently and forever, the queen who will will witness the end of the third age of time and will even get to laugh hysterically on a mountaintop for a few brief and beautiful moments. ments

In this episode we delve deeper into the story of the Princess Draupadi, discovering how desire can last beyond one life and into the next; along the way we will encounter beings from beyond this world in a mad dance in the heart of the Yellow Palace.ents

Some say that chance is a fire burning at the heart of the universe, and in this episode we learn just how much the wise king Yudishtira is willing to gamble away: perhaps the whole world, perhaps even himself. Step up to the table where the universe is thrown down to be won or lost, where hard words become a music that could drown the whole world. ents

Into the forest we go, where gods, monsters and the natural world all conspire to teach us the beauty of our smallness, and how through failure we may become greater than we once were. In this realm all of the Pandavas--and Draupadi as well--will be humbled by powers greater than any they have encountered before, and will get a glimpse of the great tapestry woven out of the seen and the unseen.
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Deep in the wilderness the Pandavas encounter powers greater than any they have encountered before-- non-human powers who school them in humility and weakness. Along the way they meet the monkey god Hanuman, the sage Parashurama and the ageless seer Markandeya who gives them a glimpse of the end of the world.



Photo: A temple to the sun god Surya in Gujarat, India by Chirag5598. (Courtesy of Wikimedia commons.)

Princess Draupadi and the five sons of Pandu confront the limits of their powers in a wilderness alive with magical beings, rakshasas, and speaking trees, and the seeds of future conflict are sown.

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Photo by Dr. C. Chinchu of the tree at the top of Nelliyampathy Hill (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)

Clowns and chickens and men in purple robes all collide as our heroes stumble into carnival season in the court of King Virata, where the usual order is upended and everyone learns a few things by being what they are not-- even as the great wheel of this story grinds towards its fateful conclusion.

Photo from the Indian Holi festival by Tapas Kumar Halder (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).

War looms even as Krishna works to stop it, and when at last that battle arrives the great warrior Arjuna throws down his weapons and refuses to fight. In this way the Mahabharata explores the question of right action in the world, throwing flowers into the fire of our questions until even the gods begin to dance. And if their dance means the end of the world, what then?

Image: detail from a page of the Razmnama, a Persian translation of the Mahabharata.

The epic which began with the theft of a cow continues as all the fruits of action grow ripe on the branches of what's possible, leading to a battle in which even a god can lose his way and the razor-sharp choices of one woman in her past life lead to fateful and miraculous consequences.
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Image: detail from a page of the Razmnama, a Persian translation of the Mahabharata.

The battle between the Pandavas and the Kurus continues in earnest as Drona, the old teacher of the Pandavas, ruthlessly pummels them with his army of elephants. Soon good and evil themselves become confused as the battle in the world is revealed to be also a battle within our hearts.


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As eighteen days of war come to an end every character finds new capacities within themselves--sometimes for good, sometimes for evil--and the earth itself seems in danger of being completely destroyed. Yet amid this human-made chaos the story asks the ultimate question: what is victory, and what is defeat?
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In the aftermath the river Ganges returns as the luminous, magical thread joining every part of this story, healing the survivors and joining the three worlds. Meanwhile Yudishtira wrestles with his doubts and seeks the wisdom of Bhisma, still clinging to life on the battlefield beneath the circling stars. 
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The Kali Yuga arrives, kingdoms fall, and the Pandavas together with Princess Draupadi set out for the otherworld. It's a long journey, and what awaits them at the end is far different than what they expect.

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​Photo: C.W. Swanson

"Everything in the Mahabharata is also found somewhere else.
What is not found in the Mahabharata is nowhere." --Vyasa

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Learning a beautiful story like this is a formidable yet invigorating task. Here's my record of how the process has been for me so far.

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