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How was the Mahabharatha written?The Mahabharatha is a very big story. In fact it is one of the biggeststories every written. It is the story of the Pandavas and the Kauravasand tells about how good will win over evil.

Have you ever wondered who wrote the Mahabharatha?

It is believed that the Mahabharatha was written by the great sage VedaVyasa. He was the grandfather of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Hehad great powers of meditation and hence lived a very long life. He livedeven after all his grandchildren the Pandavas and the Kauravas haddied.

Once when Veda Vyasa was meditating in the Himalayas, the God ofcreation Lord Brahma appeared before him.

Brahma asked Veda Vyasa to write the story of Mahabharatha. Brahmatold Veda Vyasa that as he had seen the entire story and knew all thecharacters intimately, he was the best person to write the story.

However Veda Vyasa was perturbed when he heard this. He knew that theMahabharatha was a very complex story. He could not compose and writesuch a huge story at the same time. He needed somebody's help to writethe story.

Brahma asked Veda Vyasa to ask Lord Ganeshathe elephant headed

God, for help.

Veda Vyasa started meditating on Lord Ganesha. When Lord Ganeshaappeared before him, Veda Vyasa saluted Lord Ganesha and told him ofthe reason of his meditation.

However Lord Ganesha was a very playful God. He came up with amischievous idea.He knew that Vyasa was capable of composing the epic at a very fastpace. In order to test Vyasa, he imposed a very novel condition. OnceVeda Vyasa started narrating the epic, he would not stop. If Veda Vyasastopped the narration at any time, Ganesha would stop writing and walkaway from the whole project.

Veda Vyasa knew that Lord Ganesha being the God of Knowledge wouldtake down the narration very fast. Though Veda Vyasa was confident thathe could compose the epic at a very fast pace, he doubted whether hecould match the speed of Lord Ganesha. He wondered how he could meetup to that condition, when he had a sudden idea.

He smiled and asked a favour of Lord Ganesha. He said that LordGanesha was not to write anything unless he understood the meaning of

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what was narrated to him.

Lord Ganesha smiled and accepted the condition.

Thus Veda Vyasa began narrating the story and Lord Ganesha wrote down

the story accurately.

Whenever the sage needed some rest, he would compose a stanza with avery difficult meaning. Lord Ganesha would ponder over the meaning ofthe stanza, while the sage refreshed himself, or composed more stanzas.

However after the duo began writing the story, another complicationarose.

The 'pen' with which Lord Ganesha started writing the story was not ableto keep up with the pace of the two of them. Lord Ganesha was writingthe story so fast that the pen broke! However Lord Ganesha did not stopwriting, he just broke one of his tusks and started writing with it!

That is the reason Lord Ganesha is seen in most of the pictures with onlyone tusk and the broken tusk in his hand.

Thus, though the Mahabharatha was the longest story ever written, it waswritten in a total of three years!