Non-poetical Sanskrit in Mahabharata

Yesterday, I completed the third chapter of first part of epic Mahabharata. It was a long one and contained a story of some disciples and their devotion to the Guru (master) and how they sort of proved their worthiness towards their Guru.

The main thing that I noticed in this chapter was that it was non-poetical…I mean to say there were no meters in the Shlokas. They were sort of lines written in prose, which actually confused me a bit in the beginning. I never expected that I will find some prose in Mahabharata.

Not to mention that some of the words were pretty difficult to read and pronounce and it took me a long time to go through the chapter.

It often surprises us how some epics starts from the end and then take us to the journey of past events that had took place to bring us to the point where we are starting. Flashback is perhaps the words that are used to describe such stories. The third chapter of Mahabharata also gave some glimpses as to how the story is going to proceed. The story is starting to take place shape where the most recent and living king of Kuru dynasty is active and I hope they will take us to the past of their forefathers.

I will keep you updated as I move along with future chapters of Mahabharata.