Mahabharata - Bibek Debroy

The
Mahabharata is one of the greatest stories ever told. Though the basic plot
is widely known, there is much more to the epic than the dispute between
Kouravas and Pandavas that led to the battle in Kurukshetra. It has
innumerable sub-plots that accommodate fascinating meanderings and
digressions, and it has rarely been translated in full, given its formidable
length of 80,000 shlokas or couplets. This magnificent 10-volume unabridged
translation of the epic is based on the Critical Edition compiled at the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.

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The final volume ends the instructions of the Anushasana Parva. The horse
sacrifice is held, and Dhritarashtra, Gandhari, Kunti, Vidura and Sanjaya
leave for the forest. Krishna and Balarama die as the Yadavas fight among
themselves. The Pandavas leave on the great journey with the famous
companion-Dharma disguised as a dog. Refusing to abandon the dog,
Yudhishthira goes to heaven in his physical body and sees all the Kurus and
the Pandavas are already there.

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Every conceivable human emotion figures in the Mahabharata, the reason why
the epic continues to hold sway over our imagination. In this lucid, nuanced
and confident translation, Bibek Debroy makes the Mahabharata marvellously
accessible to contemporary readers.