The Mahābhārata, Book 10: Sauptika Parvan
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- Catalogue identifier
- kali-0119
- Alternate titles and import identifiers
- KALI-0119; sauptika_ganguli_1883_1896
- Author or attribution
- Traditional Sanskrit epic attributed to Vyāsa; translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
- Record type
- Book
- Language
- English
- Date / edition
- 1883–1896 (translation series)
- Source / repository
- Historical Ganguli translation; online transcription at Internet Sacred Text Archive
- Access
- Open access
- Subjects
- Kali Library Research Catalogue; Ancient Scriptures and Primary Texts; Philosophy, Theology, and Comparative Religion
Description and curator notes
The Sauptika Parvan recounts the night attack on the sleeping survivors of the Pandava army, its aftermath and the confrontation involving Ashvatthaman's destructive weapon. Its account of the massacre contains a striking vision relevant to the history of terrifying female divine figures: Ganguli's section VIII describes “Death-Night” in embodied form, a black figure with a bloody mouth and eyes, crimson garlands, red clothing and a noose. She binds and leads away men and animals; the warriors recognize an apparition they had previously encountered in dreams. A catalog should preserve the translator's actual wording and identify this passage as epic death-night imagery, rather than silently replacing it with the developed iconography or theology of a later Kali text. The final section supplies Krishna's account of Rudra and the destruction of sacrifice, explaining the divine power behind the catastrophe. The complete eighteen-section parvan is freely accessible and ends with an explicit end-of-book marker. It supplies narrative context for the vision and makes clear that the book's subject is the war's catastrophic aftermath. This is one complete book of the epic, not the complete Mahābhārata.
KALI-0119 — Kali Library Research Catalogue.
Access and reliability assessments below are supplied by the curator's 4–5 November 2026 research release, not a new independent verification.
Author / attribution: Traditional Sanskrit epic attributed to Vyāsa; translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Publication: Historical Ganguli translation; online transcription at Internet Sacred Text Archive · 1883–1896 (translation series)
English prose translation series dated 1883–1896 on host title page; digitized and proofread by Mantra Caitanya and J. B. Hare, October 2003. Exact separate book imprint not established.
Format / language: Historical book / primary devotional or interpretive source · English; original: Sanskrit
Composition / textual history: Ancient layered Sanskrit epic; precise date of this passage not established by this access audit.
Identifier: sauptika_ganguli_1883_1896
Kali relevance: Section VIII gives the embodied black, blood-associated Death-Night vision, an important epic comparison for Kālī/Kālarātri research.
Context: The passage calls the apparition “Death-Night” in Ganguli’s English. The catalog uses Kalaratri as an index association, not an assertion that Ganguli explicitly prints that Sanskrit name in this paragraph.
Subjects: Ancient Scriptures and Primary Texts; Philosophy, Theology, and Comparative Religion
Evidence / reliability: Freely accessible complete historical text; interpretive and historical claims should be compared with modern scholarship.
Access / rights: Complete text checked 2026-11-04. Historical text and translation are public domain in the United States; observe host transcription terms and local law for reuse.
Source and alternate access links:
Read complete text: https://sacred-texts.com/book/the-mahabharata-book-10-sauptika-parva
Alternate / related form: https://sacred-texts.com/hin/m10/index.htm
Source access
Rights and reading conditions
Complete text checked 2026-11-04. Historical text and translation are public domain in the United States; observe host transcription terms and local law for reuse. This library links to the source and does not reproduce its full text.
Citation
Traditional Sanskrit epic attributed to Vyāsa; translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli. The Mahābhārata, Book 10: Sauptika Parvan. Historical Ganguli translation; online transcription at Internet Sacred Text Archive · 1883–1896 (translation series).
This page supplies catalogue metadata and links. It does not reproduce the underlying source text. Historical, religious, healing and interpretive claims belong to the cited sources, not to an independent verification by this catalogue.