The Mahabharata full story, as we know it right now, developed over centuries in ancient India through layers added around a core written by Veda Vyasa. 

It is believed by scholars that Veda Vyasa initially wrote about 24,000 shlokas (couplets) and called his work Jaya (victory). Some other scholars believe he called it Bharat. However, everyone accepts that several sages and poets added verses to Vyasa’s initial composition, expanding it from 24,000 shlokas (couplets) to 100,000 shlokas. These changes might have happened until the 4th century CE. This expanded version of the Mahabharata is what we currently call the full story of the Mahabharata.

Due to lack of time, people often read the condensed versions of the Mahabharata, however, these versions usually contain only the main events. The real gems of the Mahabharata are found in interactions between people, in how people respond to events, and in how they resolve the dilemmas that life invariably creates for them. To read and study these parts, one has to read the Mahabharata full story. 

We are in the process of creating a condensed version of the Mahabharata that will include interactions between people, the dilemmas, how different characters resolve their dilemmas,  and lessons in the subtle dharma that can be gleaned from these incidents. 

The Mahabharata Full Story

The Mahabharata story was composed for the purpose of explaining dharma (that which sustains the individual, the collective, and Mother Earth) and the goals worth pursuing in human life.

The central theme of the Mahabharata full story is related to conflict whose epicenter was the Kuru kingdom with its capital in Hastinapura. The seeds of the conflict that happened on Earth were sown in Satya Yuga in the heavenly realms when the devas won a war against the asuras and threw the asuras out of heaven. These powerful asuras, ousted from heaven, started reincarnating on Earth. They rose in power on Earth and started establishing their dominion and creating suffering for other creatures. Unable to bear the suffering of her creatures, Mother Earth approached Brahma Deva for help. Brahma Deva asked the devatas and celestial beings to also incarnate on Earth and enter into conflict with the asuras to bring relief to Mother Earth. This conflict on Earth, on account of events in the heavenly realms, forms the main plot of the Mahabharata.

Just before this main conflict began, the kingdom was ruled by King Pandu, who had extended its borders through his valor and conquests. 

After returning victorious from a series of wars, Pandu went to a forest with his two wives – Kunti and Madri – to rest and recuperate. One day, Pandu went hunting in the same forest and fired an arrow at a deer that was almost at the point of climax while mating with its partner. However, the deer were no ordinary animals. In reality, they were a rishi and his wife who had taken the form of male and female deer to enjoy sexual union without disturbing other rishis in the forest. Upon being hit, the rishi immediately returned to his original human form and cursed Pandu that he too would die the moment he got physically intimate with his wife. 

Birth of Pandavas

Dejected by the curse, Pandu gave up the kingdom to his blind elder brother, Dhritarashtra, and retired to the forest with his wives for the remainder of his life. Pandu was keen to have children but could not because of the rishi’s curse. However, Kunti, the older of his two wives, had a boon that she used to bear children. The boon was given to her in her childhood by a rishi. Using the boon (a mantra), Kunti gave birth to three sons – Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna. Madri learned the mantra from Kunti and gave birth to twins – Nakula and Sahadeva. Meanwhile, Pandu’s brother, Dhritarashtra also had a hundred sons and one daughter with his wife Gandhari, in the Kuru capital of Hastinapura. 

Back in the forest, one day, a few years after the birth of five virtuous sons, Pandu was filled with physical desire when he saw his wife Madri. But the moment he held her, the rishi’s curse took effect and he died. Madri chose to give up her life and follow her husband to the higher realms. 

After Pandu’s death, the ascetics in the forest suggested Kunti take the five children to Hastinapura and raise them in the palace. Most people in Hastinapura were happy to see Kunti and the five bright and sweet-spoken boys, but some weren’t. The people most displeased with the new arrivals were King Dhritarashtra’s sons, especially the eldest – Duryodhana. 

Pandavas in Hastinapura

Over the years, the five sons of Pandu (referred to as the Pandavas) became favorites in the kingdom because of their bright and virtuous qualities. This caused King Dhritarashtra’s sons to become even more annoyed and jealous. Duryodhana made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to kill Bhima, the second oldest Pandava brother. 

Animosity notwithstanding, all these children – the hundred Kaurava brothers, five Pandava brothers, and several others – studied under the same guru – Guru Dronacharya. After the education of the princes was complete, the elders of the Kuru court suggested the eldest Pandava brother,  Yudhishthira, be declared the crown prince of Hastinapura. The subjects of the kingdom also loved Yudhishthira, which left King Dhritarashtra with no choice but to accept the recommendation. 

From a very early age, Dhritarashtra’s eldest son, Duryodhana, had assumed he would be the next king. Extremely distraught and wanting to remove the Pandavas who had become an obstacle between him and the throne, he sought advice from his older friend Karna, brother Duhshasana, and maternal uncle Shakuni. They hatched a plan to send the five Pandava brothers and their mother, Kunti, to a town called Varnavata on a vacation, where Duryodhana’s trusted aide would burn down their house which Duryodhana planned to construct using an inflammable material. However, Dhritarashtra’s brother (and Pandavas’ uncle) Vidura, found out about Duryodhana’s plot and cautioned the Pandavas when they left the palace. Vidura also arranged to make a tunnel that would help the Pandavas escape. Eventually, with their uncle’s help, the Pandavas themselves burned down the house and escaped along with their mother, through the tunnel. Back in Hastinapura, everyone assumed that the Pandavas and Kunti had perished in the fire.

Marriage to Draupadi

Having escaped from Duryodhana’s sinister plot, the Pandavas felt it would be safer if their enemies thought them dead. Instead of returning to the palace, they disguised themselves as a brahmin family and hid in a forest where they stayed at different places, the last of which was a potter’s house. While staying at the potter’s house, they heard of a royal event in a neighboring kingdom. King Drupada, of the Panchala kingdom, had announced a swayamvara for his daughter, Princess Draupadi. 

A swayamvara is an event where the bride-to-be chooses a man from the invitees to be her husband. Draupadi’s swayamvara also included a challenge where the invitees would have to shoot a complex moving target with an arrow. The Pandavas and Kunti proceeded to the Panchala kingdom to attend the swayamvara. 

At the swayamvara, Arjuna, one of the Pandava brothers and a master archer, succeeded in shooting the complex target. Princess Draupadi garlanded him, accepting Arjuna as her husband. An unusual and unconventional decision followed and Draupadi married all the five Pandava brothers.

Now, with the support of the Panchala king, the Pandavas were no longer alone and unprotected. After the marriage, the Pandava brothers along with their wife, Draupadi, and mother, Kunti, returned to Hastinapura. The elders of the Kuru kingdom decided to split the kingdom between the sons of Dhritarashtra and the sons of Pandu to avoid further animosity and conflicts. However, Dhritarashtra split the kingdom unfairly, giving Pandavas the barren and unproductive half of the kingdom.

Pandavas at Indraprastha and Rajasuya Yagna 

The Pandavas accepted what they were given and worked hard to turn the barren land into a flourishing kingdom. Along with prosperity, the Pandavas also created favorable alliances with other kingdoms. After a few years had passed and as the Pandavas became even more powerful, several people, including Shri Krishna, advised Yudhisthira to conduct a Rajasuya yagna. In ancient India, a Rajasuya yagna was a way to establish emperorship over a much larger surrounding area. Usually, virtuous and powerful kings conducted a Rajasuya yagna to expand their borders as well as to provide protection, prosperity, and good governance to other kingdoms. Kings of smaller kingdoms would usually join this sort of confederacy for able leadership, mutually favorable alliances, and protection. 

In preparation for the Rajasuya yagna, the four younger Pandava brothers went in four different directions to expand their borders. Most of the kings submitted to Yudhistira’s sovereignty but some kings decided to fight and were vanquished. However, after these kings were defeated, they got their kingdoms back but had to accept Yudhishthira’s sovereignty and pay tribute to the Pandavas’ kingdom. 

Once all the kings had accepted Yudhistira’s sovereignty, the Rajasuya yagna was marked by a final ceremony. Here, the emperor invited all the kings for a grand festival where he was not only crowned the emperor but many other charities were given to the people of that kingdom and other lands. 

All of Bharat, except for two kingdoms, came under Yudhistira’s emperorship. He did not establish sovereignty over the kingdoms of his cousins and the kingdom of his wife. However, everyone including his cousin, Duryodhana, was invited to the event. When the Kaurava cousins saw the prosperity and wealth amassed by the Pandavas, they were filled with jealousy and ill-will. Duryodhana was extremely distraught. He even stayed back for a few more days after the ceremony was completed, just to see what kind of prosperity the Pandavas had accumulated. 

When Duryodhana left the Pandavas’ kingdom to return to Hastinapura, he told his maternal uncle Shakuni that he couldn’t bear to live in a world where the cousins he hated so much had this degree of power and prosperity. He wanted possession of everything the Pandavas owned, by hook or crook. His uncle Shakuni tried to advise him that whatever the Pandavas had amassed was because of their hard work and intelligence, and that Duryodhana also had his own kingdom and prosperity. Shakuni said he should enjoy what he had rather than be envious of his cousins. But, Duryodhana was implacable. He insisted that he wanted everything the Pandavas had, and if he did not get it, he would undertake a fast until death. Left with no choice, Shakuni agreed to deceive the Pandavas in a game of dice and win their kingdom for his nephew.

The Game of Dice and Exile

The game of dice was played between the Kauravas and Pandavas, deceit was used, and the Pandavas’ kingdom was taken by the Kauravas. Not only that, the Pandava brothers were enslaved, and one of the Kauravas, Duhshasana, attempted to disrobe Draupadi. Fortunately, he failed. Seeing Draupadi insulted, angered Bhima so much that he vowed to slay Dushasana and destroy the Kauravas. Soon after that, terrible sounds were heard and equally terrible omens began to appear. Scared by what was happening, King Dhritarashtra’s wife, Queen Gandhari, urged her husband to return everything to the Pandavas, free them from bondage, and put an end to the game of dice. Dhritarashtra relented. The game of dice ended and the Pandavas left for their kingdom with their wealth intact. 

However, Duryodhana’s jealousy was now combined with fear after seeing Bhima’s anger. He wanted to deprive the Pandavas of their power by any means possible. Duryodhana once again consulted with Shakuni, Karna, and Dushasana. They planned another game of dice but with different stakes.

The Pandavas had hardly reached the borders of Hastinapur city when a messenger from the palace came to call them back for another game of dice. When the Pandavas returned, they learned the king invited them to a game with different stakes. This time, the stakes were that the one who lost in the game would be exiled for 12 years followed by 1 year of having to stay in disguise. If they were found out in that year, the entire cycle would repeat. The game was played again, deceit was used again, and the Pandavas lost again. Consequently, they had to leave for exile immediately.

The Pandavas were accompanied by their chief spiritual guide, Rishi Ayoda Dhaumya, and several brahmins. They spent the first 12 years of exile in many places like the mountains and pilgrimage sites. The Pandavas met several ascetics and wise people on their journeys. They learned from them. They also visited many sacred places to grow spiritually. During this time, Arjuna went to Indra’s abode to get celestial weapons for the future. After 12 years had passed, the Pandavas disguised themselves and spent one year in a friendly kingdom (called the Matsya kingdom) without revealing their identity to anybody there.

The Pandavas succeeded in maintaining their disguise. However, at the end of the thirteenth year, Duryodhana had a doubt that the Pandavas were hiding in the Matsya kingdom. He made a plan to attack the Matsya kingdom from one border with the help of his allies and simultaneously steal the cattle of that kingdom. He felt this attack would expose the Pandavas if they were in the kingdom. After all, the Pandavas were noble warriors and would help the king, who had given them refuse, regain his lost cattle. As Duryodhana suspected, Arjuna did help the prince of that kingdom to get the cattle back by fighting the Kaurava army and he was exposed. But this time destiny worked in the Pandavas’ favor. According to the time calculations of the elders, thirteen years had just passed when Arjuna’s identity was revealed, and Duryodhana’s plan to send the Pandavas back into exile for another thirteen years failed.

Peace Talks Fail

After the exile was over, the Pandavas’ friends and allies came to meet them, and together, they discussed strategies for the future. Duryodhana had already established control over the Pandavas’ kingdom and was in no mood to part with it. The Pandavas made several peace attempts to reconcile with the Kauravas. In the final attempt, Krishna went to Hastinapura with a proposal that the Pandavas would accept merely five villages instead of their entire rightful kingdom for the sake of peace. However, even this offer was rejected by Duryodhana. The only option left for the Pandavas was to fight a war with the Kauravas to get their kingdom back.

Both sides became busy gathering allies. Some kingdoms naturally aligned with one or the other while some kingdoms were sought after by both sides. One such kingdom was Krishna’s, with its capital at Dwarka. Both Arjuna and Duryodhana reached Krishna’s quarters at about the same time with Duryodhana reaching slightly earlier. Krishna was napping when they reached his room. While waiting for Krishna to wake up, Duryodhana sat near Krishna’s head while Arjuna sat at his feet. When Krishna opened his eyes, he saw Arjuna first and greeted him. He asked Arjuna what he wanted. However, Duryodhana announced his presence and objected because he had reached there before Arjuna. Krishna resolved the issue by saying that one of them would get his army while the other would get Krishna, himself, unarmed. Arjuna chose his friend Krishna to join him alone and unarmed. Duryodhana got Krishna’s army to fight on his side. In the war, Krishna became Arjuna’s charioteer.

The Battle at Kurukshetra and the Bhagavad Gita  

The date of the war was declared. Two massive armies faced each other on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. According to the measure of battalions in ancient India, eighteen akshauhinis of soldiers and war animals had gathered there to fight. One akshauhini is 21,870 chariots and an equal number of elephants, 65,610 cavalry, and 1,09,350 foot-soldiers, which makes eighteen akshauhinis eighteen times of this, a massive count by all means. Of these, eleven akshauhinis fought on the Kauravas’ side and seven akshauhinis fought on the side of the Pandavas.

An interesting event happened at the very beginning of the battle. On the Pandavas’ side, Arjuna, warrior and archer par excellence, found himself unable to fight. It wasn’t because of fear. It was because on the other side of the battlefield, were his family – his granduncle Bhishma, his guru Drona, his cousins, and friends. He was unable to fight the people he had once seen as his own. This is when Sri Krishna, who was Arjuna’s charioteer on the battlefield, guided Arjuna with spiritual advice by explaining to him the true nature of existence. This guidance has been transmitted for generations in the famous Hindu spiritual book, the Bhagavad Gita. 

In his guidance, Sri Krishna explained that every human has a body and a soul. The body is born, ages, and dies. The soul, however, is eternal. It was never born. It always existed and will continue to exist for all of eternity. When one body dies, the soul takes birth in another body. Sri Krishna also explained to Arjuna that he was a warrior and his swadharma (own dharma in that life) was to fight. Thus saying, he extolled Arjuna to perform his duty as a warrior. War had already been declared, they were standing on the battlefield, and Arjuna’s duty was to fight. Finally, Sri Krishna showed Arjuna, what is known as, his viraata-swarupa, or universal form, where Arjuna saw the entire universe in Sri Krishna. Arjuna realized that in performing his duty he might cause the death of the body, of those who had assembled as his opponents, but their souls would continue to live and would be born in another body. This knowledge gave solace to Arjuna and helped him perform his duty as a warrior.

A fierce battle was fought that raged over eighteen days. In the end, the Pandavas won, but everyone except ten people perished in the battle. The people who survived were: Krishna, the five Pandava brothers, Satyaki, Kritavarman, Kripa, and Asvatthama. 

Pandavas Rule Hastinapura

After the battle, almost everyone who did not fight – the women, elders, and children – had lost someone dear to them. They were all filled with grief. After the dead were honored and rituals performed to ensure a smooth passage for their souls, the sages advised Yudhisthira to overcome his grief and reestablish dharma. They reasoned that Yudhishthira would have to overcome his grief to help the people of his kingdom come out of their grief, find relief, and move on with their lives. This time Yudhishthira conducted an Ashwamedha yagna and became the emperor of Bharat. After the yagna, the king donated huge amounts to help the people get back on their feet.

The Pandavas ruled for about three and a half decades and brought the region back to a state of virtue and prosperity. 

End of the Vrishni Race

At one point, they received the devastating news that the men of Krishna’s race – the Vrishnis – had killed each other over petty matters when small quarrels broke out into a full-scale fight after consuming massive amounts of alcohol. Very soon, Krishna and Balarama also perished. Balarama walked into the sea, and Krishna was mistakenly killed by a hunter.

When Arjuna heard the news, he rushed to Krishna’s kingdom to save the women, but his weapons refused to work and he was utterly helpless. Krishna’s wives went to the forest to spend the remainder of their lives doing spiritual tapasya.

The Final Pilgrimage 

Krishna’s death was emotionally devastating for the Pandavas. Arjuna was perplexed that his famous bow – Gandiva – and other weapons had stopped working. Eventually, the sages explained that they had fulfilled everything they had come to do on Earth. The time had come for them to release all attachments,  embark on one final pilgrimage, and return to heaven. 

They crowned Arjuna’s grandson, Parikshit, as the next king and left for their final spiritual journey up the slopes of the sacred Himalayas. Draupadi and the four younger Pandavas perished on the way. However, Yudhisthira, the eldest Pandava, was able to ascend to the heavenly regions in his human body after passing a test devised by the deva of dharma and Indradeva, the king of the devas. Eventually, all Draupadi and the five Pandavas reunited in heaven.

Thus ends the Mahabharata, one of the greatest epics ever written and a story based on the ancient history of India, written for humanity’s benefit, to guide people to live virtuously and pursue correct goals in life: those of dharma, artha, karma, and moksha, in a way that would help them to evolve as souls and eventually achieve moksha.

The above narrative is a bird’s eye view of the epic. You can think of it as the Mahabharata summary provided on one page. However, we are also in the process of creating a two-tiered version of the Mahabharata where you can read a condensed version containing all the important events, discussions, dilemmas,  and life lessons, and follow links to read more details that would typically be included in the unabridged version. 

Who Wrote the Epic Mahabharata?

A question everyone asks. Who wrote the epic Mahabharata? The Mahabharata was composed by Maharishi Veda Vyasa. However, the full Mahabharata story, which is also known as the Unabridged Mahabharata consists of 100,000 shlokas (couplets). Veda Vyasa did not compose all of them. 

Those who have done a deep study and analysis of the epic believe that he composed either 8800 shlokas or somewhere in the vicinity of 24,000-26,000 shlokas. The remaining shlokas were added to the epic over a period of many centuries by subsequent sages and poets. As the Mahabharata spread to different parts of India, the epic changed in minor ways to give it a local flavor and impart wisdom that was relevant to that time and place. These interpolations cannot be attributed to Veda Vyasa even though the poets who made them passed them off as Vyasa’s composition.

So, the accurate answer to the question: who wrote the epic Mahabharata, would be that it was initially composed by Maharishi Veda Vyasa, and eventually the composition was extended by several poets and sages over centuries, all the way up to the 4th or 6th century CE. 

The Mahabharata PDF

The Mahabharata full story is also known as the Unabridged Mahabharata. Many people prefer reading the Mahabharata PDF as compared to paper books because of the ease of searching and carrying it around. 

Several versions and translations of the Mahabharata are available as PDF download.

Among unabridged English translations, we suggest that you download the PDF of the Mahabharata translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli. 

The Hindi translation of the unabridged Mahabharata by Gita Press is also available as a set of PDF downloads.

You can also check out the page on Mahabharata PDF for more details and translations.