Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Mahabharata by C. Rajagopalachari

I picked this book just to refresh my knowledge about the great Hindu epic. I knew most of the short stories of Mahabharata. But it was unclear to me how they are connected to the main story line. I am at loss of words to say anything about this as its a masterpiece and a milestone in the history of Hinduism which was written ages before civilizations by the great Saint Vyaasa.

The book is an abridged version of the epic. It is the word-to-word translation of the story originally written in a native language of India. The usage of words don't match the context and the sentences are contrived. I felt really sad about this. So, the translation fails miserably! Especially, the characters like Karna, the five Pandavas, Duryodhana and Shakuni are so powerful that the book fails to describe even a small amount of trait about each of them in an impressive manner. The loyalty and generosity of Karna, the evil thoughts of the devious Shakuni, the envy of Duryodhana, the suffering of the Pandavas, the agony of Draupadi, the clever game changing ways of Krishna and the final battle of Kurukshetra - all are poorly detailed! I strongly believe that this book could have been written in a lot better way. This book can only be used as a source to replenish the lost knowledge of Mahabharata. But it won't appeal to a reader like me who has moderate knowledge of English literature.

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