It is a testimony to the firm foundations upon which the Mahabharata rests in India that the traumatic COVID pandemic, which generated so many new phenomena, led Professor GN Devy to ruminate on the significance of Vyasa’s mahakavya for the country. His proposition: the myths we live by lie in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, while the West draws from religious texts, not epics.
October 2023, volume 47, No 10