The Mahabharata, Volume 3: Book 4: The Book of the Virata; Book 5: The Book of the Effort: vol. 3 - Hardcover

Van Buitenen

9780226846507: The Mahabharata, Volume 3: Book 4: The Book of the Virata; Book 5: The Book of the Effort: vol. 3

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226846504 ISBN 13: 9780226846507

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1978

The Mahabharata, an ancient and vast Sanskrit poem, is a remarkable collection of epics, legends, romances, theology, and ethical and metaphysical doctrine. The core of this great work is the epic struggle between five heroic brothers, the Pandavas, and their one hundred contentious cousins for rule of the land. This is the third volume of van Buitenen's acclaimed translation of the definitive Poona edition of the text. Book 4, The Book of Virata, begins as a burlesque, but the mood soon darkens amid molestation, raids, and Arjuna's battle with the principal heroes of the enemy. Book 5, The Book of the Effort, relates the attempts of the Pandavas to negotiate the return of their patrimony. They are refused so much as a "pinprick of land", and both parties finally march to battle.

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