MAHABHARATA

We should be thankful to those who preserved for us these many-centuries-old epics in spite of all the vicissitudes through which our nation passed since Vyasa and Valmiki's time. Even the poets who wrote these epics in the original did not create but built out of the inherited bricks of national memory prior to their own time. Reading the Ramayana and Mahabharata even in the form I have given them, we go back, to live with our ancient forbears and listen to their grand voices.

Mythology is an integral part of religion. It is as necessary for religion and national culture as the skin and skeleton that preserve a fruit with its juice and its taste. Form is no less essential than substance. We cannot squeeze religion and hope to bottle and keep the essence by itself. It would neither be very useful nor last very long. Mythology and holy figures are necessary for any great culture to rest on its stable spiritual foundation and function as a life-giving inspiration and guide.

Let us keep ever in our minds the fact that it is the Ramayana and the Mahabharata that bind our vast numbers together as one people, despite caste, space andlanguage that seemingly divide them.

I wish I were gifted with greater vision and greater ability so that I could have done this work, to which I was called, better than Ihave done. I am thankful however for what I have been enabled to do. Thorough familiarity with our ancient heritage is necessary if we desire to preserve our individuality as a nation and serve the world through Dhrama which alone can save mankind from error and extinction.

MADRAS: C. RAJAGOPALACHARI

19th October 1958.

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