Ved Vyas tells Ganesh to write Mahabharat

After the great War of Mahabharata, as it is known, there was widespread destruction and a large portion of the world population had died. Cities and civilizations vanished due to the use of celestial weapons by the Warriors in the great War. This war also inadvertently led to the destruction and loss of ancient knowledge because many of the great teachers, who were apostles of the ancient knowledge, also died in the war. After witnessing all this destruction, Ved Vyas decided to write all that he knew of the ancient knowledge and history for the benefit of mankind.

The original text written by Ved Vyas was called Jaya and consists of the 4 Vedas and the great epic of Mahabharata. The Vedas are the collection of all the ancient knowledge known to him while the Mahabharata was a historical account of all events that take place from the beginning of Treta Yug when Manu, the grandson of the mother of Gods Aditi, was sent to Earth to establish the human race, to the end of Dwapar Yug after the culmination of the great War and establishment of the final kingdom under King Parikshit as the ruler of the entire great subcontinent of India spreading from modern day Afghanistan to Cambodia and Vietnam including Tibet in North and the islands of Sri Lanka & Indonesia in South. Further a lot of territories and kingdoms across Asia, Europe and Africa used to pay obeisance to the Kingdom of Bharat.

Despite all the respect we have for Ved Vyas, it may be noted that he was the last of the great Rishis but was not the greatest of them all. Hence the knowledge imparted by him is significant but not complete and that is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to understand the Vedas which are like the fountain of our knowledge. To draw a comparison, you can think of a situation in which after a large-scale nuclear war in the current world, only a few noble laureates who survived the war are required to write the entire body of modern scientific knowledge.

They will be masters of some subjects but not all. Further, they will only end up writing the results, theorems, formulas and theories but not their proofs are explanations. They will end up drawing figures of various instruments but will not be able to provide large-scale CAD drawings of the same. They will mention about many species of plants and animals by the name but will not provide photographs or details of the same. The Vedas are exactly that. They contain the results or theorems or formulas but do not provide the proofs or the necessary thesis to explain the same. Further many of the Shlokas go beyond the limits of the modern body of scientific knowledge and transcend into quantum and metaphysics.

In fact, the version available is the recorded version of the narration of the original Mahabharata written by Ved Vyas through one of his 4 disciples, Vaishampayana, who narrates this for the benefit of King Janmejaya, who was the great-grandson of Arjun and the only survivor of the Kuru race, who becomes the first King of the land of Bharat in Kaliyug after the untimely death of his father, King Parikshit, at the hands of the Naga King Takshak. King Janmejaya actually requests to know the history of his race and the events that led to the death of his father. This is why the version that we know, has selective portions of the Mahabharata which were important to answer the request of the King.

Krishna Dwaipayana, got the name Veda Vyasa (the one who compiled the Vedas in their present form) for splitting the Vedic knowledge into four parts. (he did not compose it.. He split it into four organised parts.) He also composed the 18 puranas. Yet, he felt that mankind needed something more.. Something that would explain to mankind the cost of performing and not performing certain acts. Practical guidance. So he choose to tell us his own story.

How is Mahabharata his own story? Veda Vyasa is the biological grandfather of the pandavas and the Kauravas. Mahabharata is basically his family tale. Now, we all know that Mahabharata is huge. It was a feat that even Vyasa hadn't attempted before. Magnum opus in the true sense of the term. He didn't want any obstacles. The best solution? Ask the Remover of obstacles to write it. So the Bhagavat Geeta was a conversation between the Lord and Arjuna, narrated by Sanjaya, which was in turn narrated by Vyasa to Lord Ganesha and Ganesha wrote it down. So the “creators” of the Geeta are the Lord as Sri Krishna and Arjuna.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact, that the complete original copies of this version of Mahabharata were available in the great libraries of Takshashila, Nalanda, Puri and Pataliputra, simply because of the volume of the text. Other libraries and institutions (both educational and religious) maintained portions relevant to their use and are largely incomplete. We all know that the great library at Takshashila was destroyed by the invasion of Alexander, who ordered burning of the same.

Another set of the original texts were destroyed by King Nanda of Pataliputra because Chanakya’s father Chanak was preaching Mahabharata to the citizens to create awareness of fighting for their rights instead of waiting for their doom. The king ordered the execution of Chanak and the burning of the original text of Mahabharata. It was only after King Nanda was overthrown and Chandragupta Maurya went on to defeat Alexander under the able guidance of his guru Chanakya, to establish a unified Indian Empire, that the Mahabharata was rewritten purely from memory. These events followed by the final destruction of the 2 remaining great libraries of India at Nalanda and Puri during the time of Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb is the reason for the present-day confusion between the events depicted in various versions of Mahabharata.

Interestingly the original version of the Mahabharata composed by Ved Vyas and scribed by Lord Ganesha, is possibly resting safe somewhere in the Himalayas, as no one saw it including the 4 disciples of Ved Vyas, who were imparted with the knowledge of "Jaya" and were made to promise that they would not divulge this knowledge before the last of the characters mentioned in the history catalogued in Mahabharata had passed away. This also raises a question, whether he had taken this promise to ensure that he was able to hide certain facts of the past or was he simply trying to save humiliation to the characters who had survived the war.

Maharshi Ved Vyas wanted the whole world to know the significance of Mahabharat and if he himself had written it nobody would have known the importance of the script. Ved Vyas called Ganapati because he could write fast and accurately, however Shri Ganesh put a condition to Ved Vyas that he would write non-stop without any break and Ved Vyas needs to match his speed of dictation but if Ved Vyas delayed he narration the script then he would not wait even for a moment and he will put down his pen and go away making the script incomplete.

Similarly Ved Vyas also put a condition that whatever you write should be blindly written you must write only when you understand the meaning of the words dictated to you. Shri Ganesh accepted the proposal thinking that it was not a difficult task to complete. But Ved Vyas while narrating the script saw that Ganesh could not continue to write non-stop in Mahabharat there are more than 100,000 words in all. This is not so easy to understand the meaning of each and every word therefore Ganpati took some time to understand and the writes and in the mean time Ved Vyas was ready with more number of verses.

In fact Ved Vyas did not take that time gap and constructed several shlokas it is only Ganesh took time to understand the inner meaning of these words to establish this point. These one lakh words are identified by great sage Vadiraja Muni of Udupi Math, during his time in Udupi (1480-1600 AD) who lived 120 years and took sanyas at the age of eight and followed ideal sanyas dharma.Sri Vadiraj Muni described the meaning of one lakh words of Mahabharat. The Sankrit and Kannada language book is titled as "Lakshaankara" and deserves worshipping.

"Mahatwath Bharavatwacha maha bharathamuchyate niruksthamasyo yo veda sarva papihe pramuchhate" Meaning: the script is very great and its content heavy in allegorical meaning. A person who knows this meaning itself of the text will be free from all since done earlier. Hence one can understand the greatness of this epic that is why it is called as Mahabharat. "Bharatam sarva shashtreshu bharthe geethika varaa vishnosahasranamapi gneyam patyam cha sarvada" Meaning: Mahabharat is the utmost greatest epic in that Geeta and Vishnu sahasranam are more than amrut. Therefore whoever studies and listen to these will never face defeat and will have happy and long life. Jay Shri Ganesh