The Mahabharata: A Play Based Upon the Indian Classic Epic by Jean-Claude Carrière, translated from the French by Peter Brook, the 1987 first edition hardcover, from Harper & Row, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

“One of the world’s greatest and most beloved legends dramatized into an acclaimed play—an international event in which the accumulated myth, legend, and wisdom of a people are made vivid to all.

It is Indian but universal. It is past by present. It is personal and immediate, full of high drama and tense story but ceremonial. It is simple and recognizable but has another dimension.

The Mahabharata has played to enthralled audiences in Europe; in the United States it was considered the drama event of the 1987–88 season.

As a piece of theatre it is one of the landmarks of our time; as a play to be read it stimulates the imagination to its bounds; it is a great epic, a universal myth.” — flap copy