the Mahabharata

Over the last few weeks, as some parents may have heard, our class has been listening to snippets of the Mahabharata whenever we have a few spare moments. The Mahabharata is one of two great Hindu epics (the other being the Ramayana), and of the two, the Mahabharata is the longer and the less clearly compiled. To the best of my knowledge, it is originally an ancient Sanskrit poem, some 15 times as long as the Christian Bible. The version I grew up on is the one I'm sharing with the kids: a 9-hour stage script by Jean-Claude Carrière and Peter Brook. (There is also a 6-hour film version.) I've told the kids some parts from memory, and some have been read from the script. It's a powerful story, with equally powerful language, and the characters often make strange choices even as they state their own profound and particular beliefs about the order of the world. We have not finished the story yet; we are still caught in the great, world-ending battle that takes up the last third of the script.

I'll include a passage here, simply because I love this poem and I want to give you a taste of the kind of lines we've been hearing and discussing during class and during recess.

(Yudhishthira, son of the god Dharma, unknowingly is examined by his father:)

VOICE: What is quicker than the wind?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Thought.

VOICE: What can cover the earth?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Darkness.

VOICE: Who are the more numerous, the living or the dead?

YUDHISHTHIRA: The living, because the dead are no longer.

VOICE: Give me an example of space.

YUDHISHTHIRA: My two hands as one.

VOICE: An example of grief.

YUDHISHTHIRA: Ignorance.

VOICE: Of poison.

YUDHISHTHIRA: Desire.

VOICE: An example of defeat.

YUDHISHTHIRA: Victory.

VOICE: Which animal is the slyest?

YUDHISHTHIRA: The one that man does not yet know.

VOICE: Which came first, day or night?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Day, but it was only a day ahead.

VOICE: What is the cause of the world?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Love.

VOICE: What is your opposite?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Myself.

VOICE: What is madness?

YUDHISHTHIRA: A forgotten way.

VOICE: And revolt? Why do men revolt?

YUDHISHTHIRA: To find beauty, either in life or in death.

VOICE: What for each of us is inevitable?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Happiness.

VOICE: And what is the greatest marvel?

YUDHISHTHIRA: Each day, death strikes and we live as though we were immortal. That is what is the greatest marvel.