Irawati Karve Redux: Revisiting the author of perhaps the greatest study of the Mahabharata…
Aug 24th, 2008 by Ashok
If you’ve read my Introduction to the Indian editions of my Ramayana Series–and if you haven’t, I doubt you’d be here!–you know that I hold Irawati Karve’s Yuganta in high regard.
Yuganta is perhaps the finest book ever written about the Mahabharata. And I say that after reading a few. Well, quite a few by now. Because over the past decade, I’ve either read or acquired every single book I could find on the subject, and quite a few that were only obliquely about it.
There are some great books out there. I’ll be mentioning several of them in my Introduction to the Mba when it’s published.
But none like Yuganta.
This slim book of essays, issued in a small pocketbook-sized paperback edition, belies its size. Karve herself refers to it as her ‘naroti’ (dried coconut-husk). And if it’s a naroti then it’s a naroti that distills the most precious, invaluable insights into the greatest epic of all.
In a series of simple, eloquent, heartfelt essays, she sets out her views on various aspects of Vyasa’s great work.
You may not agree with all her views–I personally have questions about a couple, and bigger issues with other points–but there’s no denying the clarity and power of her insights.
It’s an indispensable book.
In some ways, it even functions as a ‘Dummies Guide to the Mahabharata’ for some people. I’ve known people to whom I recommended it, later getting back to me with, ‘Now I can talk about the Mahabharata like I know it inside out without even having read it!’
That’s actually a pretty good way to describe almost any good non-fiction book on any subject; in fact, I suspect it’s the reason why most people read non-fiction: so they can talk confidently about the subject by spewing out the author’s views and conclusions, without actually having followed, studied, researched, or thought about the subject themselves.
In the case of the Mahabharata, it’s not a bad thing at all. Because it’s an epic that’s so generous in size, plus-sized, in today’s terminology, that you could spend your entire life studying it and still not know a whole bunch of things.
So whether you consider yourself a Mahabharata expert or someone who doesn’t know the first thing about the greatest epic ever written, Yuganta has something for you. It’s a must-read.
The reason I began thinking about it all over again, was after finding a recent article on a blog. If you’ve read Yuganta and loved it as I have, you may like to take a look as well.
You can read the complete text of the article here.
