Sanskrit
    -Itihasa
The Mahabharata is a massive work attributed to the sage Vedavyasa. The myth is that he dictated it to Ganesha, the elephant-headed deity of wisdom and success, who was the one to actually pen it. Divided into 18 parvans or chapters, it is a War Epic, woven round the royal Kuru family of the Chandra Vamsha (Lunar Dynasty), which reigned over Northern India from Hastinapur. The war in question is the Kurukshetra War fought at Kurukshetra in northern India, around 3,000 BC according to the Indian tradition, and around 1,000-1,500 BC according to modern scholars. Its original name was Jaya or Victory.

The core story is as follows: King Santanu, father of Prince Devavrata, re-married at a late stage in life and the Kuru throne went, not to Devavrata, but to a succession of defective princes born because of the second marriage. This resulted eventually in a controversy about whether Prince Duryodhana or Prince Yudhistthira would be king. Yudhistthira had four brothers, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva. And together the five brothers were known as Pandavas because their father had been named Pandu. They shared all sorts of adventures together, as well as a wife- Droupadi who was married to them all.

Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, and a cousin, was friend, philosopher and guide to the Pandavas. At the battlefield of Kurukshetra, all the major warrior kings of India were united under either Prince Duryodhana's banner or Prince Yudhistthira's. After a gory, 18-day battle, Yudhistthira emerged victor. But the epic does not end there. It takes us to great spiritual heights as after a benign reign, King Yudhistthira relinquishes his throne and, with his brothers and his wife, goes up the Himalayas into heaven. 

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