Mahābhārata

Category	Hindu traditions
Record type	Source
Editorial status	Documentary term explained from a Catholic standpoint
Authority	Definition only; inclusion confers no religious authority

Definition and ordinary meaning

The great Sanskrit epic that contains narrative, law, theology and the Bhagavad Gītā within a long history of composition and redaction.

Historical setting

The term belongs to a long and internally diverse Indian history. Vedic ritual, Upanishadic speculation, epic and Purāṇic devotion, philosophical schools and modern reform do not all use the same word in exactly the same sense.

Meaning within the tradition

Within Hindu traditions, Mahābhārata must be read according to the school, source and period that uses it. The same word may name a text, rite, institution or doctrine in more than one sense. This article therefore resists treating a later standardized definition as though it were present unchanged from the beginning.

Natural-philosophical and historical assessment

The text must first be dated, located within its manuscript and redaction history, and read according to its own genre. A source proves that a community transmitted a claim; it does not prove the claim true merely by asserting it. Earlier and independent witnesses carry a different evidential weight from later harmonising commentary.

Catholic judgement and necessary distinctions

Catholic doctrine affirms a real Creator distinct from creation, the enduring spiritual soul, one earthly life, judgement, grace and bodily resurrection. It therefore rejects pantheistic identity, reincarnation and liberation understood as absorption or escape from created personhood, while evaluating each Hindu school according to its exact proposition.

Primary texts and source control

Read the term first in the earliest available source and then in later school or institutional definitions. The following local routes keep documentary evidence separate from commentary.