The Adi Parvan

The Adi Parvan is the first Parvan of the Mahabharata and describes the history of the Chandravansha clan and the youth of the Pandavas and Kauravas.

Lecture 1: The Making of the Critical Edition
- The Adi Parvan (the first parvan) itself is 4 times the size of Illiad and Odyssey put together. (and 1.5 times the Ramayana). Sukthankar realized that the western methodology could not be imitated in totality for analysing the Mahabharata.
- We can appreciate the difficulty of the task when we realize that Sukthankar found 235 manuscripts of just the Adi Parvan itself, in different Indian scripts. There were hundreds of manuscripts, in devasthanas and libraries of rich people and public libraries.
- Dr Sukthankar has done all this work to prepare the constituted text of the Adi Parvan. The critical apparatus and appendix containsrmation. This is why the Adiparva was received with such acclaim!
- “The Adiparvan in Dr Suktankar's critical edition of the Mahabharata is now complete and I have no hesitation in saying this is the most important event in the history of Sanskrit philology since Max Muller’s edition of the Rigveda with Sayana’s commentary” ~ Prof Winternitz.