Maha·bhárata VII: Drona (volume two of four)

Translated by Vaughan Pilikian

Volume Two of ‘Drona’ begins in the aftermath of tragedy. As evening falls, Árjuna journeys wearily back to camp and is greeted by the ashen faces of his brothers. Before they speak, he guesses the worst. And the worst is right: his son Abhimányu is dead.

Árjuna is inconsolable. Insensible with rage, he vows to take revenge on the boy’s killers. He swears that if they are not dead before another day passes, he will set himself alight. The world seems to shudder at his words.

At dusk a band of dark cloud had settled across the descending sun and at night the winds blew dry and moaning and full of foreboding. Lightning flared in the sky and there was thunder but no rain fell. The ground trembled beneath the trees in the groves and the copses, and beneath the rocks on the mountains. The sea where the fish live roiled and the rivers that wound down towards it began to flow uphill. All through the camps went the howls of beasts scenting blood on the wind. Death was opening the doors to his kingdom.

c. 394 pp. | ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-6776-4 | ISBN-10: 0-8147-6776-1 | Co-published by New York University Press and JJC Foundation

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Download the title page and table of contents and one chapter of the book (in English and Sanskrit on facing pages), bundled together as a .pdf file. You can also download the CSL Front Matter (6pp, 1.3mb). It describes how we transliterate the Sanskrit text in the Roman alphabet and includes a guide to pronunciation. It also explains our system of representing phonetic fusion (sandhi).

You can set Adobe Acrobat Reader to display the Sanskrit text and translation in facing page view. Simply go to “View” in the toolbar, select “Page Layout” and click on “Facing.”

About the Translator

Vaughan Pilikian translates and edits Sanskrit literature for the JJC Foundation, co-publishers (with NYU Press) of the Clay Sanskrit Library. He also translated Maha·bhárata VII: Drona (volume one of four).

eCSL Word Frequency Counts

Top 50 Verbs

Rank	Unique Words	Number of Occurrences
1	Like	188
2	Spoke	146
3	Came	99
4	See	62
5	Made	60
6	Come	60
7	Went	55
8	Saw	55
9	Struck	53
10	Stood	51

11	Fell	49
12	Found	47
13	Gave	45
14	Go	45
15	Brought	42
16	Took	36
17	Sent	36
18	Make	36
19	Take	35
20	Gone	35

21	Held	34
22	Know	33
23	Cut	33
24	Turned	32
25	Rode	32
26	Heard	31
27	Die	31
28	Say	31
29	Tell	29
30	Raised	27

31	Hear	27
32	Looked	26
33	Began	25
34	Cry	25
35	Drew	25
36	Thought	24
37	Knew	23
38	Look	23
39	Drove	22
40	Passed	22

41	Give	22
42	Find	21
43	Rose	21
44	Meet	21
45	Fought	21
46	Broke	20
47	Lay	20
48	Stand	20
49	Called	19
50	Pass	19

Top 50 Nouns

Rank	Unique Words	Number of Occurrences
1	King(s)	271
2	Son	246
3	Men (man)	237
4	Arrow(s)	183
5	Arjuna	118
6	Car(s)	109
7	One	104
8	God(s)	103
9	Drona	102
10	Bow	102

11	Earth	89
12	Thousand(s)	88
13	Hand(s)	83
14	Gold	77
15	Horses	77
16	Warrior(s)	77
17	Mighty	70
18	Battle	67
19	Shafts	67
20	Child (children)	66

21	Head(s)	65
22	Pandava(s)	64
23	Majesty	64
24	Partha	63
25	Krishna	62
26	Dhananjaya	60
27	Time(s)	60
28	Drona’s	59
29	Lord	56
30	Sanjaya	56

31	Eyes	53
32	Hundred	51
33	Chariot(s)	50
34	Elephants	50
35	World	48
36	Fire	47
37	Words	47
38	Darts	47
39	Two	46
40	Sun	43

41	Dead	43
42	Life	42
43	Death	42
44	Three	41
45	Bharata	41
46	Srinjaya	39
47	Boy	38
48	Arjuna’s	38
49	Jayadratha	38
50	Blood	37