Itihasa · Kuru Field · Fifth Veda

महाभारत

Mahabharata
మహాభారతం

A living atlas of the Kuru house: vows, bloodlines, teachers, rivalries, hidden births, and the war where almost every bond becomes a question.

Enter the Family Tree Meet the Characters
scroll · कुरुक्षेत्र below
Marginalia

Floating Notes

The Mahabharata rarely gives us clean heroes and villains. It gives us people trapped inside vows, love, debt, shame, pride, and timing.

Adi ParvaSatyavati wants the Kuru line preserved. Vyasa enters the story as both author and ancestor, fathering Dhritarashtra, Pandu, and Vidura through niyoga.
Bhagavad Gitaधर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रेThe battlefield is introduced as a field of dharma before a single arrow is released. The place itself becomes a moral pressure chamber.
Hidden birthKarna is Kunti's first son, born before her marriage to Pandu. The secret is not a side detail. It is a delayed explosion.
Dice hallThe war begins long before the war. It begins in a room where speech fails, elders freeze, and Draupadi asks the question no one can bear to answer.
VowsBhishma's vow protects the throne, then imprisons the future. The epic keeps asking whether loyalty can become a beautiful disaster.
AftermathThe victory is real. So is the emptiness after it. The Mahabharata is not interested in a clean scoreboard.
Adi Parva · EkalavyaEkalavya, a Nishada prince, learns archery by worshipping a clay image of Drona. When Drona demands his right thumb as guru-dakshina, Ekalavya cuts it off without hesitation. The epic records the act without easy judgment.
Sabha ParvaDraupadi, dragged into the assembly after Yudhishthira has gambled her away, asks the devastating question: "Whom did you lose first — yourself, or me?" The elders are silent.
Udyoga ParvaKrishna travels as envoy to Hastinapura. He offers Duryodhana five villages for peace. Duryodhana refuses even five houses. War becomes inevitable.
Dramatis Personae

The Characters

Filter by house, then open a card for the story. The relationship graph below keeps the same names alive as a constellation.

Vamsha Vriksha · वंशवृक्ष

The Family Tree

Click a node to isolate only direct relationships. The rest dims away so the selected character's real epic orbit becomes visible.

Kuru · Hastinapura
Pandava
Kaurava · Gandhara
Panchala
Yadava
Teachers · Sages
marriage
parent to child
divine birth
teacher, ally, rival
select a node · scroll to zoom · drag to pan
Ashta Dasha Parva · The Eighteen Books

The Story, Parva by Parva

A compact route through the epic: inheritance, dice, exile, diplomacy, war, grief, instruction, departure. Jump straight to one with the strip below.

At a Glance

The Timeline

The same eighteen books, compressed to their turning points.

    Pramana · Evidence

    Sources & Texts

    Starter references for this prototype. We should later decide exactly which edition and tradition this atlas follows.

    Primary translation

    Sacred Texts: Ganguli Mahabharata

    Public-domain English translation of the eighteen parvas by Kisari Mohan Ganguli.

    sacred-texts.com/hin/maha     Overview

    Mahabharata overview

    Synopsis, structure, parvas, textual history, and major narrative frame.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata     Reference

    Character list

    Cross-check for major names, affiliations, and family connections.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_characters_in_the_Mahabharata     Reference

    The Pandavas

    Five brothers, divine births, marriages, exile, and war arc.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandava     Reference

    The Kauravas

    Dhritarashtra and Gandhari's sons, Duryodhana's claim, and the Kuru succession split.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaurava     Reference

    Karna

    Kunti's hidden son, fostered by Adhiratha and Radha, bound by friendship to Duryodhana.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karna     Reference

    Draupadi

    Panchala princess, wife of the Pandavas, and moral center of the dice-hall crisis.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draupadi     Reference

    Bhagavad Gita

    Krishna's counsel to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita     Reference

    Bhishma

    Shantanu and Ganga's son, bearer of the terrible vow, and elder of both sides.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhishma     Reference

    Drona

    Teacher of the princes, father of Ashwatthama, and commander in the war.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drona
    A note on variants. The Mahabharata is huge, layered, and regionally alive. This prototype follows the common epic relationships first: the Kuru royal line, Pandava and Kaurava branches, Panchala marriage ties, Yadava alliance, gurus, foster parents, and divine births. Later we can mark edition-specific differences and add citations down to parva and section.