Page "Mahabharata" Paragraph 5

Traditionally, the authorship of the Mahabharata is attributed to Vyasa.

There have been many attempts to unravel its historical growth and compositional layers.

The oldest preserved parts of the text are not thought to be appreciably older than around 400 BCE, though the origins of the story probably fall between the 8th and 9th centuries BCE.

The text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta period ( c. 4th century ).

The title may be translated as " the great tale of the Bhārata dynasty ".

According to the Mahabharata itself, the tale is extended from a shorter version of 24, 000 verses called simply Bhārata.