Book 1 of 18 — Critical Edition (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute)
Adi Parva — The Book of the Beginning
आदिपर्व
Two royal lines, a tangle of births and curses, and the boyhood rivalry that ends in a war of extermination.
Episodes in this parva
- The birth of the Kuru princes — A blind heir, a pale one and a renunciant's vow leave the succession contested before any of the cousins can walk.
- The house of lac — A guest house built to burn: the first attempt on the Pandavas' lives, and the escape that lets them be thought dead.
- Draupadi's svayamvara — An archery test won by a supposed dead man in disguise, and a mother's careless word that binds five brothers to one wife.
Continue through the epic
- Sabha Parva — Book 2 — A hall of illusions, an emperor's consecration, and a dice game that stakes a kingdom, a queen and five men's freedom.
