Identify the incorrect statements related to the critical edition of the Mahabharata:
A. A project which began in 1918 under the leadership of V.K. Sukthankar.
B. Initially it meant collecting Sanskrit manuscripts of the text, only from northern part of the country.
C. The verses were published in several volumes, running over 13,000 pages.
D. The project took 45 years to complete.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → A, B and D only
A critical edition of a text is prepared by comparing its many manuscripts and keeping the verses that are common to most of them. The question asks for the incorrect statements about the critical edition of the Mahabharata.
A. A project which began in 1918 under the leadership of V.K. Sukthankar. Incorrect statement (the answer). The project began in 1919, under V.S. Sukthankar, a noted Indian Sanskritist. Both the year and the initials are wrong.
B. Initially it meant collecting Sanskrit manuscripts of the text, only from northern part of the country. Incorrect statement (the answer). The manuscripts were collected from different parts of the country, in a variety of scripts. The team later found common elements in versions from Kashmir and Nepal in the north to Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the south.
C. The verses were published in several volumes, running over 13,000 pages. A correct statement (not the answer). The selected verses were published in several volumes, running into over 13,000 pages.
D. The project took 45 years to complete. Incorrect statement (the answer). The project took 47 years to complete.
NCERT (2025-26): “1. The Critical Edition of the Mahabharata … One of the most ambitious projects of scholarship began in 1919, under the leadership of a noted Indian Sanskritist, V.S. Sukthankar. A team comprising dozens of scholars initiated the task of preparing a critical edition of the Mahabharata. What exactly did this involve? Initially, it meant collecting Sanskrit manuscripts of the text, written in a variety of scripts, from different parts of the country. The team worked out a method of comparing verses from each manuscript. Ultimately, they selected the verses that appeared common to most versions and published these in several volumes, running into over 13,000 pages. The project took 47 years to complete.…” |