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Vyasa's Mahabharat is one of our noblest heritages, and it is has been a elevated influence for thousands of years. Its strengthens the soul and drives home, as nothing else does, the vanity if ambition and evil and the futility of of anger and hatred. The Mahabharat is not merely an "epic"; it is a romance, telling the tale of heroic men and women and some who were divine. It is a whole literature in itself, contain- ing a code of life; a philosophy of social and ethical relations, a speculative thought of human problems that is hard to rival; but above all - it has for its core the Bhagavad Geeta, which is as the world is beginning to find out, the noblest of scriptures and the grandest of the sagas in which the climax is reached in the wonderous Apocalypse in the Eleventh Canto! The "epic" has been an unfailing and perenial source of spiritual strength.
The philosophical essense of the Mahabharat is only one interpreta- tion. Ludwig called it an analogy of cycle of seasons - Pandu, Dhru- tarashtra, Krishna etc. being different shades of the Sun. One another scholar, Ho, considers it to be a tussle between the Vaishnav and Shaivite sects. Maxmuller addressed the Mahabharat to be a reflection of Greek civilization as it contains customs and practices prevelant among Greek people. Buhler considers the Mahabharat to be a 'Dharma- Shastra'. Wrangler Chandratreya interprets the volumnous treatise as the ocean of ethical principles spread out over a vast expanse...
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