01Born on an island
Satyavati was ferrying the sage Parashara across the Yamuna when he asked for her. The child of that meeting was born on an island in the river, so he is Dvaipayana; he was dark, so he is Krishna. He grew up at once and left for tapas, telling his mother to think of him whenever she had need. Later he arranged the one Veda into four, and so he is Vyasa, the arranger. He taught the Vedas and his Bharata to five pupils: Sumantu, Jaimini, Paila, his son Shuka, and Vaishampayana.
02Called to Hastinapura
When Vichitravirya died young and Bhishma would not break his vow, Satyavati remembered her first son. Vyasa came. Ambika shut her eyes at the sight of the gaunt, matted ascetic, and her son Dhritarashtra was born blind. Ambalika went pale, and Pandu was born pale. The maid sent in Ambika’s place received him without fear, and her son was Vidura. Years later, when Gandhari brought forth a hard mass of flesh after two years, it was Vyasa who had it sprinkled with cold water and divided into a hundred and one parts, each kept in a pot of ghee.
03In and out of his own book
Vyasa keeps stepping into the history he tells. He meets the Pandavas in hiding at Ekachakra and sends them to Draupadi’s svayamvara. In the forest he gives Yudhishthira the Pratismriti vidya to pass to Arjuna. Before the war he offers Dhritarashtra sight to watch it; the king refuses, and Vyasa gives Sanjaya the divine eye instead. Fifteen years after the war, on the bank of the Ganga, he calls the fallen warriors up out of the water for one night, so the widows and mothers can see them again. When the Yadavas have perished, he tells a broken Arjuna that time has turned.
04How the Bharata was written
The Adi Parva says the sage worked for three years, rising every day, to make this history. He taught it to Vaishampayana, who recited it at Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice; Ugrashravas the suta heard it there and told it again to Shaunaka and the rishis at Naimisharanya, and that is the frame in which the book reaches us. The much-loved katha of Shri Ganesh as scribe, who agreed to write only if Vyasa never paused, while Vyasa asked that Ganesh understand every verse before writing it, is not in the BORI Critical Edition text. It is printed in its first appendix, and is found in the Gita Press and other vulgate editions.
Famous verses
त्रिभिर्वर्षैः सदोत्थायी कृष्णद्वैपायनो मुनिः । महाभारतमाख्यानं कृतवानिदमुत्तमम् ॥
Rising early every day for three years, the sage Krishna Dvaipayana made this supreme narrative, the Mahabharata.Mahabharata 1.56.32 (BORI CE)