BHAGAVAN VYASA, the celebrated compiler of the Vedas, was the son of the great sage Parasara. It was he who gave to the world the divine epic of the Mahabharata.
Having conceived the Mahabharata he thought of the means of giving the sacred story to the world. He meditated on Brahma, the Creator, who manifested himself before him
Vyasa then asks Brahma for help to find someone who could pen the Mahabarata for him. Brahma asks him to meditate on Lord Ganapati.
Lord Ganapati agrees to write the Mahabharat as Vyasa dictates, provided his pen would never stop ie: There was no pause in the narration
Vyasa agrees but with a counter proposition. As long as Lord Ganapati understood the meaning of the slokas before he wrote them down, Vyasa would keep up his end of the bargain, and so the Mahabharata got to be written, on the banks for River Saraswati, with Vyasa composing the poems and Lord Ganapati writing it down but only after understanding them, thereby giving ample time for Vyasa to compose some more.
A side tale to this, is River Saraswati flows very rapidly at the place where Vyasa chose to sit with Lord Ganapati to write the Mahabharata, high up in the Himalayas, close to Badrinath. Its flow here was often disturbing to both of them. They asked her to flow more slowly, but she being young and restless did not listen. It is said that Vyasa was enraged one day when she was making too much noise and caused her to disappear into the underground.
To this day at the Vyasa cave close to Bhadrinath, we see Saraswati gushing out of cave ( very noisily and then just as quickly disappearing into the underground, as a result.
So coming back to the beautiful story of Mahabharat,.Here is the cronological order in which it came to be passed on to all of us.
It was conceived by Vyasa , written by Lord Ganapati and first narrated by Vyasa to his son Suka maha rishi. Suka maharishi is supposed to have revealed this to Gandharvas, Raskshasas and Yakshas. Narada revealed it to the Devas. And then, Vaisampayana a great disciple of Vyasa spread this to the rest of humanity. He did this first at the Snake Sacrifice held by King Janamejaya. Suta maharishi learnt of it at the snake sacrifice and then on his way to Naimisha aranya he narrated it to other assembled rishis. Thus it was spread it to the rest of the world.
The interesting piece here is that, it is the first flashback story ever written as well, since, it starts with the Snake Sacrifice or Sarpa Yagam conducted by King Janamejaya ( a descendent of the Pandavas).
King Janamejaya is the son of Parikshit ( the grandson of Arjuna thru Abhimanyu). After the war, and after the Pandavas left their Kingdom and after the death of Sri Krishna, Parikshit is appointed king. He was a fair and just ruler, but one day, during a hunting trip he gets further away from his companions. Searching high and low for them and feeling very Thirsty he stumbles on to an Ashram of a Rishi. The Rishi is in meditation and does not answer any of his queries as he is in deep samadhi. Tired, hungry and Thirsty, king Parikshit is enraged, and he finds a dead snake nearby and rolls it around the rishi’s neck. The Rishi wakes up just as enraged, and curses Parikshit telling him that he will die in 7 days thru a snake bite . And true to the rishi’s words in 7 days the King is killed by a snake prince named “Takshak”, who is hidden inside a lemon.
On hearing the curse and being very afraid for his life, king Parikshit is supposed to have hid inside a a fort and locked himself up in a seven storey building but in vain since, the snake got to him via a lemon and killed him.
During those 7 days, Parikshit is said to have became extremely spiritual and he heard the Bhagavatam for the first time, extolling Lord Krishna., This is the first time that Bhagavatam as we know it was narrated to humanity .
But after Parikshit’s death, his son Janamejaya wanted to avenge his father’s untimely demise and therefore conducts what is called a “Sarpa Yagam” or Snake Sacrifice in which all snakes big and small were to be killed.
The goal was to find Takshak the snake that actually killed Parikshit but Takshak had sought help from Indira, the ruler of heaven.
Janamejaya was informed of this by a person named Astika ( who was born of a brahmin and a Naga women). Janamejaya was so pleased to learn of Takshak’s whereabouts from Astika, that he promised Astika a boon, anything he wanted. Astika said that he would ask for the boon but at a later time when he really needed it.
So Janamejaya is able to with the help of Mantras find Takshak and is ready to burn him in the sacrificial fire when, Astika came forward to stop him. He asks for his boon at this opportune time The boon is for Janamejaya to set Takshak , the prince of naga’s free and maintain a friendly relationship with the Naga’s from here on out.
Even though Janamejaya pleads with Astika, he does not budge from his request.
So ultimately Janamejaya has to give in and free Takshak ( Kal Yuga was by the way ushered in by Takshak) when he killed Parikshit.
So Janamejaya even though he is still tormented,since his sacrifice was incomplete asks Vyasa’s help to understand his ancesters better. Vyasa asked Vaisampayana ( his favourite disciple) to narrate the details of the Mahabharata and the story of the Pandavas to Janamejaya. And So it happened that the Mahabharata was narrated for the first time to King Janamejaya and the Brahmins who were present at the Snake sacrifice or “Sarpa Yagam”.
This was heard by Suta maharishi who then on his way back from the snake sacrifice narrated it again this time to assembled rishis in Naimisha aranya.
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