Ugraśravas the Suta begins telling a story to some Brahmin seers led by Śaunaka. He says it’s called the Mahabharata and that it’s full of heroes and seers performing amazing feats. Ugraśravas heard that a great seer named Vyasa first compiled the Mahabharata, and he begins narrating the story of what Vyasa’s assistant, Vaiśampayana, told to Janamejaya while Janamejaya was in the middle of conducting a snake sacrifice.
Vaiśampayana begins telling the story of the Kuru lineage, of which Janamejaya himself is a member. Some of the most important members of this lineage are the Pandavas, a group of five brothers who each achieve fame in their own way: Yudhishthira, Arjuna, Bhima, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva. Another major branch of the family is called the Kauravas, and it includes Dhritarashtra, who has 100 sons, the eldest and most notable of whom is Duryodhana.
A rivalry between the Pandavas and the Kauravas begins early in life, with Duryodhana at one point scheming to try to kill his cousins. Later, with the help of an advisor named Śakuni, Duryodhana gets the idea that since he can’t defeat the Pandavas in battle, he’ll steal the Pandava kingdom for himself by tricking Yudhishthira into a gambling match. Many of Dhritarashtra’s other advisors, like Vidura, tell him that it isn’t wise to let Duryodhana go through with this plan, but Dhritarashtra allows him to do so anyways.
Yudhishthira loses the gambling competition and has to give away everything, including his own freedom, his entire kingdom of Hastinapura, and his wife Draupadi (whom he shares with the other four Pandava brothers). Eventually, Duryodhana agrees to release the Pandavas and Draupadi from bondage, but they have to go into exile for 12 years and then spend a 13th year in disguise in a city.
After the end of the Pandava exile, tensions between them and the Kauravas flare up again, as the Pandavas resent the loss of their kingdom and the way that Duryodhana treated their wife, Draupadi, as a slave. Meanwhile, the Kauravas keep encroaching on Pandava territory. Ultimately, the Kauravas and the Pandavas fight a massive war for the succession of the Kuru lineage that results in the deaths of over 1.6 trillion people. During preparations for the war, Arjuna secures the help of Krishna, a strong and virtuous incarnation of the god Vishnu, who, despite vowing not to fight, seems to assure victory for whichever side he’s on. Krishna agrees to be Arjuna’s charioteer.
The actual fighting, which lasts 18 days, involves great heroes on each side performing amazing feats of military prowess, sometimes using powerful celestial weapons and killing many nameless soldiers and some famous heroes as well. Duryodhana heads the Pandava forces, appointing a series of commanders that inevitably fall in battle to the Pandavas. Meanwhile, Yudhishthira leads the Pandavas and their allies with a steady hand. At the end of each day, the messenger Samajaya recounts what happened to the blind king Dhritarashtra, who laments the many losses his army suffers each day. Perhaps the most significant portion of the battle is the Bhagavadgita, a section of the poem where Arjuna has doubts about whether or not it’s right to fight, and Krishna gives a famous speech that touches on many topics of morality and spirituality. Arjuna ultimately goes on to become perhaps the fiercest warrior on the battlefield with his trusty bow and with Krishna driving his chariot.
Near the end of the war, when the Pandavas have defeated almost all of their enemies, Aśvatthaman (son of the dead Kaurava commander Drona) prays to Śiva and conducts a deadly night raid that kills most of the remaining Pandava army while the five brothers are away. Still, even this is not enough to change the outcome of the war, and the Pandavas take back their kingdom in Hastinapura, where Yudhishthira is reinstalled as king.
After the war, the survivors continue to live out the rest of their lives, with Dhritarashtra reconciling with the Pandavas before ultimately dying in a hermitage. To commemorate the occasion of regaining his kingdom, Yudhishthira conducts a horse ceremony, allowing a horse to roam across his entire kingdom under Arjuna’s protection before finally sacrificing it.
Eventually, it comes time for the Pandavas and Draupadi to go on one last journey. As they walk, they each fall down dead, one by one. Yudhishthira, the last one standing, is allowed to enter the heaven of the god Indra while keeping his mortal body. When Yudhishthira arrives, he’s shocked to find Duryodhana on a throne and his old allies all being tortured. He fears he’s dreaming until, at last, Indra appears, dispelling the illusion and telling him that it’s a king’s fate to go to hell before reaching heaven and that in fact, he and his allies are allowed to live in heaven for their good deeds on earth.
The frame story ends with Ugraśravas repeating that the Mahabharata is a tale about victory and that just hearing it or telling it brings good luck. He offers a hymn that people can say every morning to try to get closer to perfection.
