Feature

Mahabharata

The Mahabharata as a structure you can walk — all eighteen parvas of the constituted Critical Edition, what each one covers, and the dharma question it leaves open. Acharya is on hand to take any of it further.

18 parvas

5 dharma themes

1966 critical edition completed

What you can do

Walk all eighteen parvas, in order, from Adi to Svargarohana.
See which edition every count comes from — 18 in the North, 24 in the South.
Read the episodes each parva carries, with their context.
Ask Acharya about any parva, episode or theme in your own words.

The Mahabharata has no single text. The constituted Critical Edition prepared at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute follows the Northern recension and runs to eighteen parvas; the Southern recension divides the same story into twenty-four. Most pages online give you a number without telling you which one they counted. Here the edition travels with the count, and anything carried only by later retelling is marked as such on the entry itself.

How it works

1. Start with a parva
Open any of the eighteen books to see what it covers and which episodes it carries.
2. Check the edition
Every count states the recension it was counted under, so you can cite it.
3. Ask for meaning
Bring the dharma question a parva raises to Acharya for a grounded answer.

Every count says which Mahabharata it counted

The epic survives in more than one shape: the constituted Critical Edition follows the Northern recension and runs to eighteen parvas, while the Southern recension divides the same story into twenty-four. Pages here state the edition beside the number, so a figure you read is a figure you can cite — the same reason a birth chart on this site names its ayanamsa.

Structure first, then the argument

Each parva carries its own turn of the story — the dice game, the embassy that fails, the war and its aftermath — and each leaves a dharma question open rather than settled. Read the shape of a book, then ask Acharya to argue the question it raises.

Browse everything here

Parvas

Episodes

Characters

Themes

Common questions

How many parvas are in the Mahabharata?

Eighteen, in the constituted Critical Edition prepared at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, which follows the Northern recension. The Southern recension divides the same material into twenty-four parvans. Both numbers are correct for the text they describe, which is why a count is only meaningful beside the edition it was counted under.

Is the Bhagavad Gita part of the Mahabharata?

Yes. The Gita sits inside the Bhishma Parva, the sixth book, spoken on the field before the war begins.

Which guide covers the Mahabharata?

The Mahabharata sits with Acharya, the scripture and philosophy guide, alongside the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, the Upanishads, and Concepts & Contrasts.