MAHABHARATA

PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION

I AM grateful to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, which has brought out these fresh reprints of my Ramayana and Mahabharata books. The Bhavan has achieved great success by the very wide distribution organised by it of these two books, which seek to bring Valmiki and Vyasa near to those who have no access to theunrivalled original classics.

The characters and incidents of these two itihasas have come to be the raw material for the works of numerous poets and saints that came later to write dramas and sing poems and hymns to keep this nation in the straight path. Oral discourses have further played with them in order to entertain and instruct pious audiences and not a few variations and additions have been made to the original.

All the languages of India have the Ramayana and Mahabharata retold by their poets, with additions and variations of their own. It is good to have the narrative written up for young people as told in the original epics, and these two books of mine seek to serve that object.

I appeal particularly to the young men in schools and colleges to read these books. 'There is not a page in them but after reading you will emerge with greater courage, stronger will and purer mind. They are not just story books, although they are very good in that way, too.

They are the records of the mind and sprit of our forefathers who cared for the good, ever so much more than for the pleasant and who saw more of the mystery of life than we can do in our interminable pursuit for petty and illusory achievements in the material plane. 

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