Nowadays, we often search the Internet for phrases such as free mahabharata PDF download, but in ancient India, all stories, including the Mahabharata, were told and propagated orally. This style of storytelling was common to indigenous cultures around the world. However, as the printing revolution began in the 15th century, printed works gradually gained in popularity, and now, after the internet revolution many people prefer electronically distributed books.
The story of the Mahabharata is available in several forms including PDF, paper books, e-books, audiobooks, website contents, etc.
The Mahabharata is a massive story. At 100,000 shlokas (couplets), it is the longest epic in the world. It also gives us a glimpse into ancient India, the kingdoms, the politics, and the values that people of this land considered important.
The Mahabharata also guides its readers an understanding of what constitutes the correct goals of life and how to resolve challenging dilemmas that human lite inevitably throws at us, in accordance with the principles of dharma.
An advantage of reading this epic in PDF format is the mobility it grants the reader. If you’re comfortable reading on electronic screens, then you’ll be able to carry a PDF copy of the Mahabharata wherever you go and use small pockets of time to read and think about the lessons it teaches us. Not only this, PDF also makes it easier to highlight and make notes on the go without having to carry paper books and stationary.
The Mahabharata PDF
As a reader, there are several sizes, languages, and translations of the Mahabharata available in PDF format. We’ll examine all these options below and help you understand which Mahabharata PDF may be best for you.
The Mahabharata Summary
The Mahabharata summary is a good starting point to begin reading the Mahabharata story. We suggest the edition of the Mahabharata written by C. Rajagopalachari. This book was first written in 1951, and, has since, been republished several times. First-time readers of the Mahabharata almost unanimously agree that this book – at 900 plus pages – makes for an ideal introduction to the great epic before reading the unabridged edition.
The Mahabharata Full Story
The Mahabharata full story consists of eighteen parvas or books. The epic was originally composed in Sanskrit. Towards the end of the 19th century, Kisari Mohan Ganguli, created an excellent translation in English. Certain editions of this book were also published under his publisher’s (Pratapa Chandra Roy) name. These books were housed at several university libraries, including the University of Toronto’s library. University of Toronto contributed these books to the public domain through archive.org website where these books are available in the PDF format. Some of these books contain multiple parvas, while certain parvas like the Shanti Parva span across multiple books. We have provided links to download various Mahabharata PDF files of these books in the next section.
Adi Parva
The Adi Parva begins with a bard called Ugrasrava Sauti going to Naimisha Forest to meet a group of ascetics who had gathered for a twelve-year yagna. The ascetics were delighted to see Sauti because they liked the stories he brought with him from various kingdoms he had visited and yagnas he had attended. When Sauti asked the ascetics what they wanted to hear, they all said they wanted to hear the story of Bharata.
The Adi Parva contains a creation story of the universe, followed by the benefits of reading the Mahabharata, followed by summaries of the Mahabharata.
This is followed by the births of the ancestors of the Pandavas, the birth of the Pandavas, the childhood conflicts between the Pandavas (sons of Pandu) and the Kauravas (descendants of the Kuru dynasty, essentially the children of Dhritarashtra).
The Adi Parva also narrates the marriage of the five Pandavas to Draupadi, the Pandavas establishing their kingdom in Khandavaprastha, Arjuna’s exile after going to the room where Draupadi and Yudhishthira were sitting, and the burning of the Khandava forest.
Click here to download a : free PDF file of the Adi Parva from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Sabha Parva
The Sabha Parva narrates the events from the time the Pandavas began expanding their kingdom and made it flourish, to the time Duryodhana used deceit to take the Pandavas’ kingdom and sent them on a thirteen-yefull ar exile. The Sabha Parva also contains Yudhishthira’s Rajasuya yagna, Shishupala’s death, the game of dice, Draupadi’s insult and disrobing, and the Pandavas as well as Draupadi leaving for the forest for a thirteen year exile.
Click here to download a : free PDF file of the Sabha Parva from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Aranyaka Parva
The Pandavas and Draupadi had to go to the forest after they lost the game of dice to the Kauravas. The rules were that whoever lost the game would have to go on exile for thirteen years, of which the last year would have to be spent in disguise. If their disguise were exposed, then they would have to repeat the thirteen year exile on the same rules.
The Aranyaka Parva narrates events from the first twelve years of the exile.
Click here to download a : free PDF file of the Aranyaka Parva from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Virata Parva and Udyoga Parva
After completing the first twelve years of the exile, the Pandavas and Draupadi spent the thirteenth year incognito in the Matsya kingdom ruled by King Virata.
Even though Draupadi and the Pandavas successfully completed their thirteen years of exile, Duryodhana refused to return their kingdom to them. The Udyoga Parva contains The peace negotiations between the Pandavas and Kauravas, the failure of those peace negotiations, and how both sides prepared for the impending war.
Click here to download a : free PDF file containing the Virata Parva and Udyoga Parva from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Bhishma Parva
Bhishma Parva marks the beginning of the Kurukshetra war. Bhishma was the first commander-general of the Kauravas army. This parva narrates the events of the first ten days of the war. The parva ends with Bhishma being badly injured. His entire body was filled with arrows. He lay on the battlefield, on that bed of arrows, and awaited for an auspicious time to leave his body.
Click here to download a : free PDF file containing the Bhishma Parva from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Drona Parva
After Bhishma was badly injured and got out of the war, Acharya Drona was made the commander-general of the army. The Drona Parva describes the events that occurred on the next five days (11th – 15th) when Drona led the Kaurava army. This parva ends with the death of Acharya Drona.
Click here to download a : free PDF file containing the Drona Parva from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Karna Parva
After Acharya Drona’s death, Duryodhana made Karna the commander-general of the Kaurava army. The Karna Parva describes events that happened in the war on the 16th and 17th days – the period when Karna led the Kaurava army.
After Karna was killed by Arjuna, King Shalya was made the commander-general of the Kaurava army. The Shalya Parva covers the eighteenth day of the battle. King Shalya and Duryodhana died on the eighteenth day, concluding the war in the favor of the Pandavas.
Duryodhana died on the bank of the lake after being fatally wounded by Bhima. His good friend, Ashwathama, met him in the last moments of his life. Ashwathama was filled with grief and anger when he saw his friend, Duryodhana, writhing with pain. He promised Duryodhana that he would avenge his friend’s pain and was made the commander-general of the Kauravas. By this time the entire Kaurava army, except for Kripacharya, Ashwathama, and Kritavarma, had been wiped out by the Pandavas. The Sauptika Parva mostly deals with how Ashwathama avenged Duryodhana’s death.
The Stree Parva shows us the grief-filled aftermath of the war.
Click here to download a : free PDF file containing the Karna Parva, Shalya Parva, Sauptika Parva, and Stree Parva from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Shanti Parva
The Shanti Parva is a massive parva filled with teachings on many topics such as the responsibilities of a king, administration, dharma, adharma, etc. these teachings are given by sages and Bhishma (who was still on the bed of arrows on the battlefield).
Since it’s a large Parva, the contents of the Shanti Parva span three PDF files.
Click here to download : the first free PDF file containing details of the Shanti Parva from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Click here to download : the second free PDF file containing details of the Shanti Parva from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Click here to download : the third free PDF file containing details of the Shanti Parva (and part of the Anushasana Parva) from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Anushasana Parva
The Anushasana Parva is mostly a continuation of the topics started in the Shanti Parva. In this parva, we also learn various stories that act as examples of the concepts discussed in the teachings.
Click here to download a : free PDF file containing the remainder of the Anushasana Parva from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Ashwamedhika Parva, Ashramvasika Parva, Mausala Parva, Mahaprasthanika Parva, and Swargarohana Parva
The final PDF download in this set consists of five parvas: the Ashwamedhika Parva, the Ashramvasika Parva, the Mausala Parva, the Mahaprasthanika Parva, and the Swargarohana Parva. Let’s look at the main contents in each of these parvas. In the Ashwamedhika Parva, the main events are Yudhishthira’s Ashwamedhika yagna and the birth of Arjuna’s grandson, Parikshit. If you remember, after the Pandavas were given the Khandavaprastha region, Yudhishthira conducted a Rajasuya Yagna to establish himself as the emperor of Bharatvarsha. And after the war of Kurukshetra, upon the advice of sages, Krishna, and his brothers, Yudhishthira performed the Ashwamedhika Yagna to become the emperor of Bharat once again. The goal was to bring back hope, prosperity, and peace to the land.
Ashramvasika Parva informs us about the event about the last of the Kuru elders leaving their material life and retiring to the forest. Sometime after Yudhishthira became the emperor of Bharatvarsha, Gandhari, Dhritarashtra, and Kunti decided to leave the comforts of the palace and spend the remainder of their lives in the forest in pursuit of knowledge of the self. Vidura and Sanjaya also followed them. A few years after they left, each of these elders perished in the forest.
Mausala Parva concerns itself with the events that led to the extinction ofvKrishna’s race (the Vrishnis). After the Kurukshetra war, Gandhari had cursed Krishna that just as he had witnessed the Kuru family engage in a war among themselves and come to a point of self destruction, he would also witness the same thing in his own clan. The Vrishnis became very powerful and arrogant in the years that followed the Kurukstetra war. A time came when they started fighting among themselves, which led to their destruction. Dwarka, the capital city of the Vrishnis, was also submerged in the ocean. In this parva, we also see Balarama walking into the sea and Krishna mistakenly killed by a hunter.
Hearing about Krishna’s death filled the Pandavas with grief. After that, when Ariana Went to save the Vrishni women, his weapons refused to work. All this, along with Maharishi Vyasa’s advice, helped the Pandavas understand that the work they had come on Earth to do was complete, and the time had come for them to leave the palace and go on tirth yatras. The Mahaprasthanika Parva narrates the events around Draupadi and the Pandavas leaving the palace after crowning Arjuna’s grandson, Parikshit, as the king of Hastinapura.
The last parva of the Mahabharata, the Mahaprasthanika Parva narrates the final ascent of the Pandavas on the slopes of the Himalayas.
Click here to download a : free PDF file containing details of the Ashwamedhika Parva, Ashramvasika Parva, Mausala Parva, Mahaprasthanika Parva, and Swargarohana Parva from the unabridged Mahabharata written by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and published by Pratap Chandra Roy.
Who wrote the epic mahabharata?
Before we ask the question, who wrote the epic Mahabharata, we have to first understand how literature was created and propagated in indigenous and western communities. Indigenous communities followed the oral tradition where information about correct conduct and topics of learning was encoded in narratives that were memorized, orally narrated, and transmitted by word of mouth. In ancient India, this was taken a step further where narratives such as the Mahabharata were taught and transmitted orally through the guru-shishya (teacher-student) tradition. This was done to ensure that the meaning encoded in various sub-stories that are part of the Mahabharata was understood properly.
Veda Vyasa, a sage from ancient India, composed the epic Mahabharata. At that time, most likely, it consisted of 24,000 shlokas or couplets. As the Mahabharata became popular, several other sages and poets added parts as per the requirements of time and place. Over several centuries, the Mahabharata expanded to 100,000 shlokas.
The first written amount of the Mahabharata, based on the evidence we currently have, seems to be the Spitzer Manuscripts, found in China by Moritz Spitzer, while on an expedition in the early 20th century. These manuscripts written on dried palm leaves have recorded content on several topics. Among them is the table of contents of the Mahabharata. Carbon-14 dating suggests that they were created around 80 – 230 CE.