Vannakam,

It has been 1 year and 8 months since I started reading the K.M. Ganguli Unabridged Mahabharata and in that interim I have learned a great deal from it. From the Adi to Svargarohana, I have plowed through all 5818 pages of this important epic. For those who are interested in trying this feat (which as I have shown is far from impossible) I must give some small warnings.

The work does become tedious in parts. Areas such as the Tirtha-Yatra, the thousand names of vishnu and rudra, the genealogies, the profusion of gifts of kine, sraddhas, even the battles. There is a lot of repetition.

Digressions are frequent, i'd say of the near 6000 pages, only 3000 are actually devoted to the main plot line of the Pandavas vs. the Kauravas, even during the great battle of Kurukshetra there are frequent digressions.

Everybody has over 3 different names that are used interchangeably. Arjuna is Phalguna, Dananjaya, Partha, Krishna is also Vasudeva, Janardana etc. This can get confusing at first but one does get used to it.

In all the translations i've seen, the language is very antiquated (the version I read was in victorian prose) so expect to see some outdated phrasing and words such as Welkin, Kine, Calumniate etc.

There are regular contradictions. It happens a lot.

Now that I've gotten my warnings out of the way I can say that this is truly a wonderful and enlightening work. You will learn just about everything you need to know on emancipation, leading a good life and all that other fun stuff. For those who go through with it it will be immensely rewarding.

I hope this does not sound boast-y at all, I am just extremely happy that I actually read through the entire epic. If anybody wants more in depth discussion on it feel free to message me.

Also if anybody is reading through it themselves, feel free to post something on here with your thoughts

Namaste