Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s3.t6.2

v2.c10.s3.t6.2

The main story of Mahabharata elaborates many legends. It is not only of great literary value but also profound religious philosophy and code of law. It is also the longest epic in the world. There are two main editions - critical edition of Pune and collated edition of southern India. The former is seven times the length of the Homeric epics, Iliad and Odyssey combined, and the latter is about 10 times. Critical edition has more than 80,000 odes (verse) with more than 1,60,000 lines. The southern Indian edition has more than 1,00,000 odes with more than 2,00,000 lines. The core part of the epic may originate from the 8ᵗʰ or 9ᵗʰ century BCE. Bharata, the oldest part of the book is composed of 24,000 verses, without episodes. It may have been produced in 4ᵗʰ century BCE, and the full text is shaped in early Gupta Dynasty in 4ᵗʰ century CE. In other words, the epic was formed between 4ᵗʰ century BCE to 4ᵗʰ century CE. According to legends, the author of Mahabharata is Vyasa. In addition to the dialogues between the characters and an individual prose section, the whole epic is in ode style with 32 notes of a verse. Each line has 16 notes, chanted in two separate sentences. Translated into Chinese poetry, it has eight notes of a sentence and four sentences of a verse.