The Harivamsa- Critical Edition with Introduction and Notes- Being The Khila or Supplement to The Mahabharata (An Old and Rare Book in Set of 2 Volumes)

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Even when the project of the Critical Edition of the Mahabharata had been first mooted by the Bhandarkar Oriental Rearch Institute, early fifty years ago, it was decided that the Critical Edition would comprise not only the eighteen Parvans of the Great Epic but also the Harivamsa, which had bem traditionally regarded as its Khilaparava Naturally enough, during the first thirty years and more, the Institute applied its entire entry to the completion of the Critical Edition of the main epic. When, however, in course of time, the end of that work was well-nigh in sight, the Mahabharata Department began to think of commencing the work on the Harivamsa in right earnest Accordingly, the preliminaries in that connection were taken in hand, in an informal manner, in August 1954. Later, at a solemn function organized at the Institute on November 19, 1954, Rashtrapati Dr. RAJENDEA PRASAD formally inaugurated the work of the Critical Edition of the Harivamsa by writing down on the collation shoot, in his own hand, its first stanza, It may be recalled that the work of the Critical Edition of the Mhabharata had been inaugurated in a similar way by Ramakrishna Bhandarkar thirty-five years before.

It must be confessed that, in the initial years, the work on the Harivamsa did not show any appreciable progres-and this mainly for want of adequate funds. The appeal for funds issued by the Institute did not evoke any hopeful response though, it must her gratefully mentioned, Dr. Rajendra Prasad himself hat opened the list of Subscribers with a personal donation of Rs. 1,000. In 1900-61, Dr. S. K. BELVALKAR, who had then been the General Editor of the Mahabharata, applied to the Government of India for suitable grant for the Harivamsa. After I had taken over as General Editor in April 1961, on the retirement of Dr. BELVALKAR, I pursued the matter, specially urging on the Ministry of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs the advisability of creating opportunities for the proper utilization, in connection with a text-critical project such as that of the Harivamsa, of the trained and efficient personnel of the Mahabharata Department who would have to be otherwise soon disbanded. Thereupon the Ministry appointed a small ad hoc committee to examine the details-andemic, administrative, and financial of the Harivamas scheme submitted by the Institute. The committee visited Poons, discussed the whole scheme with the workers of the Institute, and finally recommended in their report that the estimated cost of the project amounting to Rs. 3,60,000--- which amount, the committee privately felt, erred on the side of being over moderate be borne by the Ministry. Ultimately the the Government of India agreed to pay, in ten annual instalments, two third of this amount and persuaded the Government of Maharashtra to pay the remaining one third.

This first Critical Edition of the Harivamsa, the khilaparvan of the Mahadharata, is based on four printed editions, and 36 Manuscripts in 8 different scripts.

A-Printed Edition

(1)Calcutta Edition (Cal. ed.), Vol. IV, Khila Harivamsa parva, pp. 445-1007,edited by Pandits of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, and published by the same Society in A. D. 1839.

2) Bombay Edition (Bom. ed.) containing the text of the Harivamsa in three volumes and published by Shri Khemraj Shrikrishnadas at the Venkatesvara Steam Press, Bombay first edition 1897, with a Hindi translation by Pandit Jwalaprasad Mishra of Moradabad (U. P.)

3) Poona Edition (Poona ed.) in one volume, with the commentary called Bharata-bhava-dipa of Nilakantha Caturdhara, edited by Pandit Ramachandrashastri Kinjawadekar and published by Chitrashala Press, Poons, 1936,

4) Grantha Edition [G(ed.)] in Grantha script, printed in Laksi-Hayanana Printing Press by Vangipura Shri Vedanta Ramanujacarya in 1897.

There are a few more printed editions of Harivamsa in Devanagari script published by the Gita Press at Gorakhpur, and in Bengali script edited by Nrsingha Mukhopadhyaya and published in Calcutta in 1871. But for obvious reasons they were not consulted for this Critical Edition.

All the four printed editions divide the text of Harivamsa into three sub-parvans with separate adhyaya numboring for each. Thus the first Harivamsaparvan contains 55 andhyayas (corresponding to 1-45 adhyayas of the Critical Text), Visuparnav contains 128 adhyayas (corresponding to adhyayas 46-113 of the Critical Text), and Bhavisyaparvan contains 185 adhyayas with minor khilas (corresponding to adhyayas 114-118 of the Critical Text). I have indicated these three sub-parvans in the left-hand corner of the right hand page as well as on marginal references to editions. But the Mss. of Harivamsa consulted by me do not support such a division into sub-parvans as well as separate numbering of adhyayas for each sub-parvan: All the three sub-parvans are, therefore, treated by me as one continuous text, and adhyayas are numbered consecutively from 1 to 118. The reader, while referring to the Vulgate Text, has to bear this fact in mind. The concordance of the three editions at the end of Vol. II as well as marginal references in the Critical Text will help the reader in this respect.

**Contents and Sample Pages**