Jaya- Mahabharat

उपोद्घात: = Prelude

नारायणम् नमस्कृत्य नरम् चैव नरोत्तमम् ।

देवीम् सरस्वतीम् व्यासम् ततो जायम् उदीरयेत् ।।

Narayanam Namaskritya Naram Chaiva Narottamam.

Devim Sarasvatim Vyasam Tato Jaayam Udeerayet..

I, having prostrated unto:-

Narayana= The Supreme being, the God. Narayana doesn't mean merely one form of Lord Vishnu. It indicates, the supreme lord, who is formless, who is beyond all attributes, and who is the existence of all objects, and who is the consciousness by whom everything is known. I prostrate unto that God.

Nara and Narottama= I prostrate unto the twin Rishis (sages) by name Nara and Narottama, and by prostrating to them, we prostrate to the entire tradition of spiritual seekers and seers, to the knowers of truth, to the wise ones.

Devi Sarasvati= The presiding deity of all speech, arts and education. She is the body of the intellectual stuff of the entire universe. For instance, I think, I speak, I learn, I teach...Similarly, the entire universe thinks, speaks, learns and teaches, as the sum of all individuals
..the summation of the entire universe's intellectual transactions, is Sarasvati. Of course, since each individual speaking talking teaching learning is a sentient activity, therefore the totality which we name as Sarasvati, is to be sentient (parts make the whole. Whatever is in the part, is in the whole). So, by invoking the sentient totality, and receiving her blessings and permissions, we invoke the auspiciousness of all this that is to come henceforth.

Vyasa= Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa... His glory is enormous. He is an ancient sage, who classified the enormous Vedic knowledge into the four Vedas, he composed the summary of all Vedanta (spiritual part of Veda, which is to be learnt after the religious part of Veda) into Brahmasutra, and he is the composer, as well as a character in the Mahabharata. He is an incarnation of Narayana himself, and he is the greatest pillar of all lineages(lineage means, a series of people, in common Hindi, knows as Parampara) of spiritual teachings and philosophies. He is also supposed to be the author of 18 Maha Puranas (18 epics, each highlighting the plays of a certain form of God, or composed for a certain set of messages)

Having thus prostrated to all of them, the Supreme Lord, the Seers of Truth, the embodiment of Knowledge, and the Teacher of the tale, and having invoked the auspicious bringing Lord Ganesha, and the trinity gods Brahma Vishnu Maheshwara,

I hereby begin the telling of Jaya, the legend of Mahabharat.

Welcome dear readers. First of all, let us begin with the introductions. The Mahabharat is the epic of Hinduism. It is as of now, consisting of 1,00,000+ shlokas or verses. It is a Ballad, a story composed in a poem. It was composed by Veda Vyasa (Vyasa as introduced above). But, there is a story of how this epic came to be composed. Let's see that: