A translation of the twelfth book of The Mah­­ābhārata, an epic tale of history and kingship, reinforced with legends, romances, and metaphysical, theological, and ethical teachings written in Sanskrit 1700 or more years ago.

A remarkable composition of 100,000 couplets, The Mah­­ābhārata is the second-longest poem in world literature. In this volume, James L. Fitzgerald completes his translation of the twelfth of The Mah­­ābhārata’s eighteen books, the vast Shanti Parvan, or The Book of Peace. Covering a wide range of ancient Indian intellectual history, The Book of Peace was intended to serve as a comprehensive, brahmin-inspired basis for living a Good Life in a Good Society in a Good Polity and is one of the most important and complex books of the poem.

Fitzgerald’s previous contribution to the Chicago edition of The Mahābhārata, volume 7, opened with Book 11, The Book of the Women, which movingly portrayed the grief of the wives, mothers, and sisters of the many warriors slain in the epic’s central war narrative. The crises of grief presented in The Book of the Women give particular poignancy and depth to the shanti, or pacification, that is the theme of Book 12, The Book of Peace. Volume 7 included the first half of The Book of Peace, and volume 8 now completes it with the second half, which is focused particularly on the ways people can escape the cycle of rebirth and realize sublime beatitude by way of saving knowledge or yoga meditation or devotion to God Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa. Supported by an extensive introduction and notes, this publication will be greeted as a major event in Sanskrit studies.

James L. Fitzgerald is St. Purandara Das Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit, Department of Classics, Brown University.