Mahabharata: A Modern Retelling

In her vibrant retelling of this set of tales from ancient India, British poet Satyamurti (Countdown) elegantly captures stories of family conflict, family rivalry, jealousy, pride, ambition, honor, defeat, and love woven through the long Sanskrit poem. Satyamurti works from other scholarly translations—using K.M. Ganguli’s unabridged 5,000-page English prose translation as her primary guide—to condense all 18 books of the poem into blank verse, remaining faithful to its structure and dramatic range. At the core of the work is the bitter ongoing conflict between two rival families for control and possession of the Bharata kingdom and its capital of Hastinapura, the “city of the elephant,” on the Ganges River in northern central India. Satyamurti includes the epic battles at the core of the book, preserving the ambivalence and courage displayed by the warriors Arjuna and Karna: “They fought like gods. All the other warriors/ dropped their weapons so they could observe/ the well-matched pair.” She brings to life Krishna’s discussion of dharma, or duty, in the central section that is called the Bhagavad Gita: “Follow duty for duty’s sake,/ without straining after rewards..../ Let your action be informed by discipline..../ Cultivate a calm and stable mind,/ your own right understanding, Arjuna./ Only then will you escape delusion.” Satyamurti succeeds in making this ancient masterpiece accessible to modern readers. (Feb.)