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The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa translated into English Prose by [GANUGLI, Kisari Mohan, translator]
Book Description
Calcutta: Bharata Press, 1883-1896. First complete English translation. Eighteen octavo volumes bound in nine. Complete and with the final "Postscript" by the translator, dated July 15th, 1896. Near contemporary brown cloth with gilt spine lettering. As these were apparently issued in wrappers it is not illogical to suppose that these are the bindings that the publisher created to house complete sets. Very minor soiling and a bit of worming. Old but nicely done paper repairs to top blank margin of the Postscript. Overall, a very good set. A very good copy of this very scarce first complete edition in English of India's great religious epic poem. "The Mahabharata is an ancient religious epic of India. It has existed in many forms, the fundamental one being a text in ancient Sanskrit which may well be the world's second largest book (after the Gesar Epic of Tibet). The Mahabharata has existed in various forms for well over two thousand years: First, starting in the middle of the first millennium BCE, it existed in the form of popular stories of Gods, kings, and seers retained, retold, and improved by priests living in shrines, ascetics living in retreats or wandering about, and by traveling bards, minstrels, dance-troupes, etc. Later, after about 350 CE, it came to be a unified, sacred text of 100,000 stanzas written in Sanskrit, distributed throughout India by kings and wealthy patrons, and declaimed from temples. Even after it became a famous Sanskrit writing it continued to exist in various performance media in many different local genres of dance and theater throughout India and then Southeast Asia. Finally, it came to exist, in numerous literary and popular transformations in many of the non-Sanskrit vernacular languages of India and Southeast Asia, which (with the exception of Tamil, a language that had developed a classical literature in the first millennium BCE) began developing recorded literatures shortly after 1000 CE. The Mahabharata was one of the two most important factors that created the "Hindu" culture of India (the other was the other all-India epic, the Ramayana), and the Mahabharata and Ramayana still exert tremendous cultural influence throughout India and Southeast Asia. The Bhagavad Gita is a part of the Mahabharata, comprising 700 verses. The teacher of the Bhagavad Gita is Krishna, who is regarded by the Hindus as the supreme manifestation of the Lord Himself. But the historical importance of the Mahabharata is not the main reason to read the Mahabharata. Quite simply, the Mahabharata is a powerful and amazing text that inspires awe and wonder. It presents sweeping visions of the cosmos and humanity and intriguing and frightening glimpses of divinity in an ancient narrative that is accessible, interesting, and compelling for anyone willing to learn the basic themes of India's culture. The Mahabharata definitely is one of those creations of human language and spirit that has traveled far beyond the place of its original creation and will eventually take its rightful place on the highest shelf of world literature beside Homer's epics, the Greek tragedies, the Bible, Shakespeare, and similarly transcendent works" (J.L. Fitzgerald). It must be noted that while accepted bibliographical wisdom states 1884 as the date for the first volume, ours is clearly dated 1883. This edition has is still considered important in the study of the Mahabharata; "An informed, serious, and scholarly translation (though far from perfect and completely reliable) of an eclectic mix of the Popular Version of Neelakantha and the Calcutta version of the text." From the library of Juliet Barrett Rublee (with her signature and dated 'Cornish, N.H., 1924). Juliet Barrett married George Rublee, lawyer and political advisor to Dwight Morrow and Wilson appointee to the Federal Trade Commission. A modern dancer in the early 1900s, Rublee became involved in the birth control movement in 1916 after Margaret Sanger's arrest. She was close friend of Sanger and financial supporter of the movement. She was an active pacifist during World War I and writer/producer of a film (Flame of Mexico, 1932). She died in 1966
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