A friend of mine gifted me a Mahabharata Diary that for each day has quotations from Bhishma, Vidur, Yudhishther, Sanatsujat, Kalavrikshiyaa Muni, A Week with Shiva and Bouquet of Sayings. I am reproducing the quotations for you. The Compilation and translation of the extracts from the Mahabharata appearing here have been done by Shri Shyam Sunder. Please thank the lawyer for this outstanding work and my colleague Ajay for typing all the stuff.

The piece is divided into six chapters namely –

1. Bhishma’s Wisdom.  (  1 – 100    ) 
2. Viddura’s Counsel.  ( 101 – 200 )
3. Yudhishthira’s Answers.  ( 201 – 238 )
4. Sanatsujat’s Teaching.  ( 239 – 255 )
5. Kalavrikshiyaa Muni said. ( 256 – 269 )
6. A Week with Shiva.  ( 270 – 275 )
7. Bouquet of Sayings.  ( 276 – 313 )

Before we move to chapter 1 here are Sri Aurobindo’s words on the Mahabharata.

“The Mahabharata is the creation and expression not of a single individual mind, but of the mind of a nation; it is the poem of itself written by a whole people.

The leading motive is the Indian idea of the Dharma.

Here the Vedic notion of the struggle between the godheads of truth and light and unity and the powers of darkness and division and falsehood is brought out from the spiritual and religious and internal into the outer intellectual, ethical and vital plane.

It takes there in the figure of the story a double form of a personal and a political struggle, the personal a conflict between typical and representative personalities embodying the greater ethical ideals of the Indian Dharma and others who are embodiments of Asuric egoism and self-will and misuse of the Dharma, the political a battle in which the personal struggle culminates, and international clash ending in the establishment of a new rule of righteousness and justice, a kingdom or rather an empire of the Dharma uniting warring races and substituting for the ambitious arrogance of kings and aristocratic clans the supremacy, the calm and peace of a just and humane empire.

It is the old struggle of Deva and Asura, God and Titan, but represented in the terms of human life.