Mahabharata text and English translations

Just writing down what I know, for future reference.

Sanskrit text: manuscript traditions

Loosely speaking, the available manuscripts of the Mahābhārata fall into three categories, called recensions:

• Southern (longest/most elaborate)
• Northern (≈“Vulgate”)
• Kaśmīrī (even shorter)

The critical edition of BORI (Sukthankar et al) is (again, loosely speaking) the intersection of these.

(To be more precise, in Sukthankar’s terminology there are two recensions, Northern and Southern, with the former divided into two “sub-recensions” or “groups”. I just looked at some examples and found it more convenient to simply think of them as three.)

(Source)

Sanskrit text: published in print

Some notable published versions:

Northern recension / “vulgate”:

• Calcutta edition = “The editio princeps of the Mahabharata printed in Calcutta between 1834 and 1839.” — the first printed edition of the Mahabharata, published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 4 quarto volumes in Nāgarī script. I was able to find a scan of the Calcutta edition here on Wikisource (has been taken down on Internet Archive for some reason). (It’s pretty unreadable though.) Other scans of Vol1 (presumably 2–4 are also there) here and here.

• Bombay edition = (1863?) “The oblong pothi-form edition, published by Ganapat Krishnaji in Śaka 1799 in Bombay (hence commonly known as the Bombay edition). It is accompanied by Nllakantha’s commentary, Bhārata-bhāvadīpa” (I think Śaka 1799 should be the year 1877 or so.) A scan seems to be here. Not very usable I think.

• Chitrashala Press (Kinjawadekar) edition: The Mahābhāratam with the Bharata Bhawadeepa Commentary of Nīlakaṇṭha. Edited by Ramachandrashastri Kinjawadekar. 1929–36. 7 vols. Poona: Chitrashala Press. (repr. New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1978; 2nd ed. 1979).

  • Parimal Press edition which aligns the above with M. N. Dutt translation (see below)
    • Also available at hinduscriptures.in and mahabharata.shreevatsa.net
    • Also available digitized (paper) at rahular.com (github)

Southern recension:

• Kumbhakonam (Krishnacharya) edition, 1906–1914: https://sanskritdocuments.org/mirrors/mahabharata/mahabharata-sarit.html and SARIT

• Vavilla (P. P. S. Shastri) edition, 1932: https://mahabharata.manipal.edu/

Critical edition:

• Critical edition 1933–1966 (see above and sheet below), prepared by a team of scholars at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), Pune during 1927–1966, initially led by V. S. Sukthankar, and later by S. K. Belvalkar. Available here
  • plus Harivaṃśa (P. L. Vaidya), 1969.

See more at https://mahabharata-resources.org/mbh_editions.html

English translations of the unabridged Mahābhārata

• K. M. Ganguli (P. C. Roy), 1883–1896 — based on the vulgate (mostly Calcutta edition)
• M. N. Dutt, 1895–1905 — same
  • Both of these are in the public domain and available on various websites, e.g. mine.
• P. Lal (17 volumes) + Dr. Pradip Bhattacharya (2 volumes) 1999–2009, 2020 — based on all the available text?
• Bibek Debroy 2010–2014 10 volumes — based on the critical edition

Incomplete:

• Chicago 1973–(2004?) (4 volumes published of 10 volumes planned) — based on the critical edition
• Clay Sanskrit Library 2005–2009 (15 volumes published of 32 planned) — based on the text as known to Nīlakaṇṭha, i.e. the Chitrashila Press edition

I made a sheet:

Please email me or use this form if anything is wrong or anything significant is left out.