Mahabharata
Sanskrit epic of ancient India, traditionally attributed to the sage Vyasa —who, according to the narrative itself, is also a character in it, ancestor of the protagonist heroes— and comprising roughly one hundred thousand verses ('shlokas'), the longest single narrative poem in all of world literature, about seven times the combined length of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Composed over several centuries, probably between 400 BCE and 400 CE, by multiple anonymous hands who progressively added narrative, philosophical and doctrinal layers, its central plot recounts the dynastic conflict between two branches of the same royal family, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, arising from a succession dispute and a humiliating game of dice, culminating in the great battle of Kurukshetra, in which nearly all the warrior lineages of India annihilate one another. Woven around this epic core are hundreds of secondary tales, laws, treatises on philosophy and statecraft —including a miniature Arthashastra within the Book of Peace—, genealogies and hymns, forming a veritable encyclopaedia of ancient Indian civilisation, which tradition itself describes as containing 'everything that exists' —and what is not found in it 'exists nowhere'. Its most famous and spiritually influential episode is the Bhagavad Gita, the dialogue between Prince Arjuna, paralysed by moral doubt at the prospect of killing his own kinsmen, and the god Krishna before the battle, on duty (dharma), disinterested action and the various paths to spiritual liberation, often read as a standalone text though it is organically part of the whole work. Regarded by Hinduism as itihasa —'thus it happened', a category midway between sacred history and myth— the Mahabharata remains today the most influential narrative and moral source in Indian culture, revisited countless times in theatre, dance, cinema and television, and venerated by many Hindus as a fifth Veda.