The Mahabharata is the greatest epic poem in the world, being eight times as long as the Iliad and Obyssey put together and three and a half times the Bible. Revered as a religious text by the people of India, it has been recognized by people all over the world to be a classical of world literature too. Though studies of some facets of the work are available, there has so far been no comprehensive and detailed literary study of the work. This is being offered for the first time in this work.

The Gita, which is part of the epic, has been extensively studied and in many languages, but as a detached text. The author, who regards the story as the main metaphor of the poet, shows that the Gita cannot be isolated thus from its embedding in the epic and has analyzed its message in detail, the space devoted to this being as extended as in most of the books on the Gita that have been published. There are also an outline summary of the epic and analyses of the major characters and crucial episodes.

A dedicated work by a writer who is the author of a five-volume philosophy of freedom and a ten-volume history of world literature, its analysis of the philosophy of the epic is against the background of the major currents of world philosophy, old and new, eastern and western, and the literary evaluation matches the highest standards of criticism anywhere in the contemporary world.

About the Author:

Krishna Chaitanya, whom a national periodical has described as "one of the most original and stimulating minds writing in the sub-continent today", and as "our nearest approximation to the Renaissance man" is the author of over thirty books whose interdisciplinary range got him the "Critic of Ideas" award of the Institute of International Education. New York. The major categories are: a five-volume philosophy of freedom for which he got a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship and which has been compared by critics to the works of Thomas Aquinas, the French Encyclopaedists, Herbert Spencer, Bergson, Whitehead and Teilhard de Chardin; a ten-volume history of world literature including a history of Sanskrit literature, in English and several Indian languages, which won a special award from the Kerala Sahitya Academy; several books on Indian culture including a four-volume history of Indian painting; and books retelling Sanskrit classics or vividly recreating the life of past epochs for children, one of which got the Federation of Indian Publishers' award for the best children's book published during the International Year of the Child. As Vice-President Chairman, member of functional committees he has been associated with over a dozen Cultural organizations. He has traveled widely in Asia, Europe and the USA and is listed in several international biographies and directories.

Chapter 1	A CONTOUR OF THE POEM
I	The Story Line	1
II	The Shaping of the Story	13
Chapter 2	A PROFILE OF THE POET
I	The Mind that Reshaped	26
II	The Literary Craftsman	37
Chapter 3	THE FOUNTS OF DISCORD
I	Dhritarashtra	45
II	Duryodhana	64
Chapter 4	THE ENCOUNTER WITH CIRCUMSTANCE
I	Bhishma	79
II	A Spectrum of Patterns	96
Chapter 5	THE TRANSFORMATION OF PREDICAMENT
I	Karna	118
II	Yudhishthira	133
Chapter 6	A TRIAD OF GREAT WOMEN
I	Draupadi	145
II	Kunti	152
III	Gandhari	159
Chapter 7	THE STRUCTURED EPISODE
I	Dress Rehearsal in Virata	165
II	The Hidden Stakes that were Gambled	170
Chapter 8	THE ORDER OF FORCE
I	A Voltairean Guffaw	188
II	The Breeder Reaction	192
III	The Double Fallacy	196
IV	The Order of Conscience	201
Chapter 9	THE POETIC NECESSITY OF THE GITA
I	Failure of Philosopher	208
II	Resumption by the Poet	216
Chapter 10	WORLD AFFIRMATION OF THE GITA
I	Reality of Evolution	226
II	Creativity of Nature	234
III	The Advent of Man	243
Chapter 11	GITA'S AFFIRMATION OF ACTION
I	Order of Automatisms	252
II	Order of Freedom	262
III	Order of Responsibility	268
IV	Order of Altruistic Action	276
V	Limits of Legitimate Force	284
Chapter 12	WHO IS KRISHNA?
I	Coordination of Causalities	296
II	Prologue in Heaven	303
III	Lights and Shadows over Krishna	312
Chapter 13	STRUCTURE OF HISTORICAL EXISTENCE
I	Structured Terrain or Quicksand?	326
II	Karma as Structural Law	333
III	Transmutation of the Tragic	344
Chapter 14	PARTNERS IN HISTORY
I	Denial of History	357
II	"What Krishna Meant…"	362
III	Parity of Partners	372
IV	Open-Ended History	384
Chapter 15	FROM ETHICS TO AESTHETICS
I	Man the Moral Agent	393
II	Man the Seeker of Delight	405
Chapter 16	MEANING OF MOKSHA
I	Bonds or Bondages?	418
II	Self-Transcendence of Man	429
III	Deity's Partner in Work and Relish	434
IV	Epilogue	447
Index		456

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