Introduction

The Mahabharata is one of the two major epics of ancient India.
The epic is made up of about 100,000 verses making it the longest poem ever composed.
The Mahabharata is one of the most important texts of ancient India and indeed world literature as well .
Its authorship is traditionally ascribed to Krishna, himself a character in the epic.
According to tradition it is he who dictated the verses and Ganesha wrote them down.
The Mahabharata is regarded as one of the most important sources on the development of Hinduism. It appeared in its present form between 400 BCE and 200 CE and Hindus regard it as not only a text about Dharma but also as Itihasa, meaning history.
The Mahabharata consists of a mass of mythological and didactic material arranged around a central heroic theme that tells of the struggle for the throne of Hastinapur between two groups of cousins.
There are also many smaller stories about people that were dead or living and also philosophical discourses.

Mahabharata as an Oral Tradition

These are narrated orally also.
Stories of the Mahabharata were written in other Indian languages as well. Each Indian language has added some of the incidents according to their culture.
There are many stories in oral literature not yet entered in the written version.
In both the Sanskrit epics it is seen that their framework presents them as oral compositions and this signifies the importance of not only the bard or the reciter but also of the audience whose presence is integral.
However they have also been transmitted in written forms and have continued to develop thought. Another instance of oral transmission is seen through Sanjaya.
Another point of view suggests that both the Mahabharata and Ramayana represent the culmination of a lengthy tradition of oral poetry, by sutas or bards. The Mahabharata also had humble beginnings – it started out as an orally transmitted tale of the charioteer bards.
Beginning in the 5^th century BCE the Brahmins got a hand on the orally transmitted epic and started transforming it into written word.
The Brahmins however did not write the narrative of the bards as it was. The Brahmins therefore took it upon themselves to explain the ‘abhorrent details’ and added large didactic portions. This is why the Mahabharata as we know it today not only included a dramatic narrative but also a sermonizing didactic.

Draupadi's Polyandry

Dhrupad, the king of Panchala, organized a competition whereby the man who could string a bow and hit a moving target would win his daughter’s hand in marriage. Arjun, being an ace archer, won the competition and married Draupadi. Yet, Draupadi eventually ended up as the wife of all five Pandavas. This polyandrous alliance merited three different explanations in later additions to the epic:

1. Post Arjuna’s marriage to Draupadi, the Pandavas returned to their mother and exclaimed that they had got something for her. Kunti, without even seeing what had been brought to her, ordered that the brothers share whatever had been brought. On seeing Draupadi, Kunti realized her mistake, but her command could not be violated. Thus, all the five brothers share Draupadi.

2. Dhrupad protested at such an immoral union, but the sage (and also the compiler of the epic) Vyasa explained to him that Pandavas were the reincarnation of Indra, and Draupadi had been reborn as Indra’s wife. Thus, their union was meant to be.

3. In another instance, Vyasa explained that a young woman had prayed to Lord Shiva for a husband a total of five times. That woman was reborn as Draupadi, and thus received five husbands, one for each one of her prayers.

The epic’s authors with the idea that Draupadi’s polyandry was an aberration thus offered a host of explanations. However, Wendy Doniger, in her book, The Hindus, points out that Draupadi’s was not the only polyandrous marriage. Several other polyandrous unions exist in the epic such as that of Satyawati who had two partners, Shantanu and Vyasa’s father, Ambika as well as Ambalika with Vichitravirya and Vyasa, Kunti with Pandu, Surya, Dharma, Vayu and Indra and finally Madri with Pandu and the two Ashwins. polyandr�)��h�

Krishna and dharma

Between 200 BCE and 200 CE, the Bhagavad Gita, a huge didactic text (providing justifications for fratricide, among other things) was added to the epic.
This was a time when the Puranas were being written and Vaishnavism was becoming popular. Apart from replacing the expensive Vedic yajnas with the simple Puranic pūja, the Puranas also carried out a process of assimilating several deities of the low tradition with the deities of the high tradition.
One such deity of the “low tradition” was Krishna, of the Vrishni tribe. Like other deities of the “low tradition” like Jagannath of Puri, Krishna was made one of Vishnu’s 10 avatars.
Krishna’s cult grew quickly and as a result he was made a central figure in the epic. Similarly, between 200 and 400 CE, didactic sections akin to the Manusmriti were also added. This is when Dharma becomes a central concept in the epic.

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