Mahabharata Utsav comes alive in Bangalore

Mahabharata Utsav comes alive in Bangalore
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Drama, dance and theatre are among the medium through which the relevance of the Hindu epic Mahabharata in modern times is being reinforced here at a nine-day festival.

The Mahabharata Utsav, which began Sunday night, will also have story-telling sessions and host an exhibition of ancient manuscripts and artefacts, including weapons from different museums, as well as paintings on the Mahabharata.

Around 3,000 people attended the inauguration of the Utsav, being held for the first time.

Karnataka Governor T N Chaturvedi, inaugurating the event, said the message of the Mahabharata was more applicable in the present day context than before "To resolve the conflict between good and evil and for restoring order and righteousness".

He praised the Mahabharata Samshodhana Pratisthanam (MSP) research foundation, which is organising the festival, and its efforts to bring out an encyclopaedia on the epic. The foundation is also planning a mobile digital laboratory for showcasing Indian manuscripts and heritage.

The MSP organisers, consisting of IT professionals from global firms like Wipro, IBM and Intel, have begun working on the encyclopaedia project under the guidance of scholars from India and abroad.

The encyclopaedia will be the world's first such bilingual -in English and Sanskrit - project on the Mahabharata aimed for a global audience.

The union ministry of culture and human resources development, philanthropic organisations and corporates are funding the five-year project, which will have 18 volumes of 1,000 pages each.

Former Chief Justice of India and utsav chairman M N Venkatachaliah, giving the keynote address, said the time-tested qualities of justice, honour, dignity and friendship, as depicted in the Mahabharata "Would transform humankind to higher forms of life towards spirituality and divinity".