Customer Reviews

Mahabharata (Meridian)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Great Bharata of Vyasa, comprising over 100,000 Sanskrit stanzas organized into eighteen volumes, contains within its vast length many stories - of gods and demigods, of kings and warriors, of legend, history, ethics, philosophy, law, politics, and religion. Within all its richness lies a core story of the great civil war between the Kurus and the Pandavas, two rival branches of the Bharata lunar clan, culminating in the terrible Battle of Kurukshetra, an Armageddon which wiped out both sides in the fighting and ushered in the degenerate Fourth Age of Mankind, in which we are all living today. It is this story, lying at the very heart of the Mahabharata, which most translators into English, including William Buck, choose to tell.

Buck created his version in the 1960's, resolving to tell the story in his own way, which would be accessible to readers in English but remain faithful to the spirit, if not the letter, of the original. He condensed, rewrote, and reinterpreted in order to make a work which he hoped would please and delight his readers while preserving the essential story. The result is very controversial, and the controversy continues to this day (Buck died in 1970).

Many readers, including me, appreciate the artistry and skill of Buck's writing. I am puzzled, however, by the changes that he made in the story. For example, Buck has Krishna kill Dushsasana prior to the battle (in Vyasa, Dushsasana is killed by Bhima at Kurukshetra). For another example, in Buck's version, it is Virata's son Uttara who breaks into the Kuru's Lotus formation during the battle (and is subsequently killed). In Vyasa, the protagonist is Abhimanyu, son of Arjuna. For a third example, Buck has Draupadi volunteer, after having been won by Arjuna, to become the wife of the other four Pandava brothers as well; in Vyasa she has no choice, since her mother-in-law, Kunti, commanded Arjuna to share "whatever he had brought" with his brothers.

These are major characters, and it seems arbitrary for Buck to change their stories in this way; it is like Paris, instead of Hector, being killed by Achilles!

It is also important, I feel, for a translator to bring across the beauty, grandeur, religious ecstasy, and sorrow of Vyasa's conception; the Battle of Kurukshetra is a Ragnarok, an Armageddon, a monumental epic, the end of an age, the banishing of gods and demigods from earth; I do not find such elevated emotions in Buck's version, although it must be admitted that I have not found it in other translations either, and probably only the original Sanskrit can do it justice. In my view, the Mahabharata is a tragedy, perhaps the greatest tragedy ever written, and the tragic viewpoint is what I find most lacking in Buck's version, in spite of its many felicities of incident and style.

For readers who are unfamiliar with the Mahabharata, it is easy to get lost in the multitude of characters and their complicated relationships. Buck makes a sincere effort, but he lapses at a few important points. For example, when Bhima cries to Drona that "Aswatthaman is slain", the reader may not realize that Aswatthaman is Drona's son, since there is no entry for Aswatthaman in the glossary.

The glossary, as in the example above, omits many crucial relationships and names. An index and a geneaology chart of the major characters would have been very helpful, but are not included in the book. There are only seven footnotes. The edition that I am reviewing (University of California paperback, 1981) was apparently typeset from the original plates, since it contains all of the original typographical errors.

Buck's version omits the Bhagavad Gita, the "Song of God" that is uttered by Krishna just before the climactic battle. The Gita, although now considered to be a relatively late interpolation to the basic story, is absolutely essential; its importance is analogous to the story of Job in the Old Testament, and any version of the Mahabharata is fundamentally incomplete without it.

In summary, I recommend that readers who are not that familiar with the Mahabharata should read first a modern version such as R. K. Narayan, which tells the basic story clearly and accurately; first-time readers should also obtain a contemporary translation of the Gita, and read it when they reach the appropriate point in the Mahabharata narrative. I do like Buck's version; the writing is very fine, and I feel a certain nostalgic connection to it (Buck and I are both children of the 60's); but I have to admit that on the whole, it really does not meet contemporary standards of scholarship or accuracy.

In a nutshell it is an Indian story of Cousin's War that takes place more than two to three thousand years ago. I have read and heard narrations of Mahabharata in three Indian languages; Telugu, Oriya, Hindi as well as tried reading it aloud in English to my 10 year old. It is very hard for any Indian well versed in another Indian language to relish reading it in English. To use another metaphor,may be as discomforting as it will be for a Chinese person, adept at using chopsticks, to eat noodles with fork and spoon. Hence all the panning and bad marks heaped on this book from many readers who claim Rajagopalachari or RK Narayan or some other Indian has written better versions. Yet for anyone totally uninitiated in ancient Indian mythologies and epics as many of my current friends are, this happens to be a very succintly written version that conveys the essence. Yes, there are a few inaccuracies like Arjuna, in stead of his son Abhimanyu, marrying Virata's daughter Uttara and omissions of many sub plots like Ekalavya's triumphant self taught archery and devotion to a virtual teacher. But author himself has acknowledged that it is not a scholarly transliteration, and I am glad he made it more readable in the process. Even Tolstoy is accused of historical inaccuracies while creating a masterpiece called "War and Peace". I always like to compare Mahabharata with Tolstoy's epic novel with its multitude of characters and centrality of war as a metaphor for human life for those who have not yet been familiar with either of them. Anyone who has grown up in India may have been exposed to Mahabharata in one form or another, including many movies, one of the good ones made by Peter Brooks and a popular TV series in late 1980s. Yet; I could open any page in William Buck's Mahabharata and read it to enjoy the story. His English rendition is more palatable than the Indianized idioms of many other translators. In his short lifespan of 37 years he seems to have fallen in love with the Indian epics of Mahbharata and Ramayana after discovering them in a Nebraska library and translated them for the uninitiated. However my best version happens to be what my late uncle(he would have been 90 years old now) used to narrate to us during long evenings of summer vacation get-togethers of myriads of cousins. Alas we did not have access to even a basic tape recorder to record at least one his many evenings' narration of Mahabharata(he used to break it in to 12-18 episodes);where princes in disguise were meeting their consorts in forests, getting married and begetting children instantly by only touching tongues; his simplification of the whole process for the minors in the audience. My uncle and narrators like him spanning many generations of Indians added color to the story in their native languages and in the process enriched the narrative and rendered it more enjoyable, long before writing materials and the scholars came to codify an authorised version. Hence I will strongly recommend William Buck's version of Mahabharata as the next best thing to having an audio cassette of my own uncle's narration in Telugu. Hope the publishers release an E-book version so that one can easily search for an episode for its topicality in a day's event. Wish they could also hire someone like Roshan Seth to read it as an audio book CD or audible.com for the road.

Vyasa's Mahabharata is a massive epic that has no equal in Western literature. The central story of the Mahabharata revolves around five brothers (the Pandavas) who were disinherited of their kingdom through the treachery of their cousins (the Kurus) and their struggle to regain what is rightfully theirs. The epic culminates in the apocalyptic Battle of Kurukshetra, engineered by the Gods to wipe out the warrior race. Tagged to this central plot is a veritable mine of jewels and gems - a whole library of ancient Hindu folktales, myths and legends that serve to illuminate the ancient Hindu concept of dharma and adharma (which can be translated very loosely as "right/truth" and "wrong/falsehood"). William Buck's retelling of the Mahabharata is the second version that I've read in two months - the other being C. Rajagopalachari's version. While I enjoyed Rajagopalachari's version immensely, I felt that something was missing. As with most other Indian writers who retell the great Indian epics for English speaking audiences, Rajagopalachari successfully evokes a deep sense of piety - these epics are, after all, sacred scriptures to the Hindus - but he fails to measure up in terms of evoking the sheer sense of awe and wonder that Vyasa clearly intended his epic to convey. This Buck manages to do in spades - his version is told simply but clearly, with very little of the sermonising that Indian authors are sometimes prone to overdo, thus successfully transporting the reader to a wondrous time when Gods still walked the earth with men. My sole complaint is that Buck sometimes randomly changes events/protagonists for no apparent reason - as others here have already noted, Buck has (i) Draupadi volunteering to become the shared wife of the Pandavas rather than this being the unintended result of their mother Kunti's edict to share the treasure that they brought home that day, (ii) Arjuna marrying Princess Uttarah instead of his son Abhimanyu, (iii) Krishna killing Duhsasana before the war instead of Bhima during the war, and (iv) Prince Uttara breaking the Kurus' battle formation instead of Abhimanyu. Even Yudhishtira's final trial before his entry into heaven is presented by Buck only as a dream. I can only give Buck four stars instead of five due to these unnecessary changes. Such faults aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. If you have never read the Mahabharata before, I would suggest starting with Buck's version. It will get you hooked onto this wonderful epic and make you hungry for more - then go on and pick up Krishna Dharma's unabridged version for a more accurate retelling. Buck very unfortunately died before he could finish his retelling of the Harivamsa, a companion piece to the Mahabharata that fleshes out the life story of Krishna, along with that of Vishnu's other avatars.

For beginners only. This is a very basic summary of the plot of the Mahabharata. There is nothing scholarly about this book at all. It lacks any type of Critical Apparatus or Bibliography. It seems at times twice removed from the Epic, i.e. it gives the impression of being a summary of an abridgment. For a much better summary see Rajagopalachari and for an abridgment based on "actual" translation of the Sanskrit see Narasimhan. Unfortunately these both leave out the Philosophical portions of the Epic, which in my opinion are of vital importance to understand the Mahabharata. The only complete translation into the english is by K.M. Ganguli in 12 volumes available from Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers New Delhi. The M.N. Dutt translation in 7 volumes follows Ganguli. The summary by Buck is perhaps good to read to children, but for anyone who wants to get the feel for what the Epic is really like it is unsuitable. Another recommendation is the translation of the first five books of the Critical Edition by J.A.B. van Builtenen, though this only covers the first third of the Mahabharata.

I am not any kind of sanskrit scholar but I have enjoyed reading mythological literature for about ten years and I found Buck's Mahabharata to be a bore. I found it incomprehensible and disjointed. It was as if the author was trying really hard to create such an air of enchantment that he gave us something that sounded downright obscure and pretentious. At first I thought that maybe the original is this way, but then I came across R.K.Narayan's crystal clear version. After that I read Rajagopalachari's, which was beautiful. I recommend these versions much more.

The Mahabharata, in essence, is a good story, but the way Buck tells the story varies. At some points, Buck goes into amazing poetic phrases, but at other points, the story is crushed down to its bare core. Usually this would not be a big problem, but when you are condensing ten thousand pages into four-hundred, you can't afford to take too much space up with poetry. I like the poetic parts but what it causes is that the non-poetic parts are horribly condensed. A lot of the time Buck introduces new characters and never gives any information about them and then he expects you to know everything about them! I had to refer to the character list multiple times throughout this book. Of course, this may also be caused because I am not too aware of Hindu folklore. If you are new to reading Indian folklore, I would suggest the Ramayana by Krishna Dharma. It was excellent! However, I still liked this book, but I think someone who knows the religion better than I do (who would also think of the Mahabharata as more than just a story) would enjoy it a lot more.

In my opinion Buck's retelling of the Mahabharata is excellent. He does exactly what he intended to do: from his literal translation of the epic he creates a readable rendition for people who aren't neccessarily "scholars". It is his own story, and he never claims anything else. This book is great for getting started in the field of religious texts- Hindu or otherwise.

I have today finished reading William Buck's retelling of the Mahabharata and am disappointed. English-language readers might be better advised to read Rajagopalachari version to get an overview of the epic.
I should like to mention that I have Indian antecedents and have read various abridged translations of the Mahabharata in both English and Gujarati.
This rendition is riddled with careless editing of the narrative. For example, the entire episode of the Aswamedha is omitted from the narrative yet Buck refers to Yudhisthira as "King of Kings".
Besides removing important events and characters Buck displays a lack of understanding of dharma. An example will suffice: Buck has Arjuna marry Uttara, the daughter of Virata at the end of the 13-year exile -- since Arjun had been her teacher this act would be adharma. (Arjun's son Abhimanyu marries Uttara in Vyasa's Mahabharata.)
Overall I cannot recommend this version.

Overall, I should say I am fairly impressed. I do not know the Mahabharata enough to say whether the translation preserves the spirit of it, but as a piece of writing it is highly satisfying. It made me want to learn more about Indian literature. Buck has written a tale accessible to us westerners who have never heard of Arjuna or the like, with characters that we can identify with. That said, the brevity of it sometimes makes some episodes impossible to understand, unless, I suppose, one has external knowledge about the epic. Some references within the text I understood only after reading a bit more about India, but on the whole it does not hamper the overall comprehension of the epic. A fine read. I would have appreciated a more detailed directory of characters and gods (especially the latter) so one could see what Buck is talking about.

I looked at excerpts from various retellings of the Mahabharata story before purchasing Buck's version and that of R. K. Narayan. The latter gives an adequate, well-told resumé of the story. In addition, it includes a genealogical table and a pronouncing dictionary of principal characters. But Buck's version is more complete and -- especially -- more enthralling. I can't speak for the original, but Buck's version possesses the magic of old tales retold. After all, the Mahabharata was originally passed down orally. Buck's version captures all the spontaneity of such a tradion, as well as the thrill of the story and the poetry of the narration. A great story, well told.