Beginning the Mahābhārata: a reader's guide to the frame stories

Anyone wanting to read the Mahabharata in English will find no helpful guidance in print, and helpful guidance is definitely needed. The epic opens with a set of frame stories that the most recent translator calls "frankly confusing, even bewildering." Earl guides the reader through the opening 56 chapters, analyzing the epic's major themes and narrative strategies along the way. This is the way to begin one of world literature's greatest reading projects.