Vyasa means reorganizing. Ved Vyasa reorganized and compiled the Vedas into four parts. He taught one Veda each to  four of his students and tasked them with the propagation. His name is Krishna Dvaipayana. Dvaipayana refers to him having been born on an island. Dvaipa means an island. Vyasa also means diameter of a circle and the longest line that can be drawn across the circle. This is also interpreted to mean that Vyasa covers the entire earth in Mahabharata.

Vyasa composed a massive corpus. He composed the mahapuranas. He also composed the Brahmasutras which are summaries of the Vedanta and guide to life. Upanishads are a part of the Vedic corpus and were not composed by Ved Vyasa.. 

It is important to read books where the writing and spirit of the original author are reproduced faithfully. When an author injects his own interpretations and value systems, then the reader is being given a different version from what the original author intended.

Mahabharata has one lakh (i.e a hundred thousand) verses. The critical edition of Mahabharata removed several verses that were not considered part of the original text. It still is a mammoth 80,000 verses. There are four other epics in the world, including Ramayana. Mahabharata is longer than all other epics put together. 

Maha means large. It truly captures the mammoth nature of the work. It is not just long in length, but also in its coverage. It describes a large geography from east to west. It also covers the entire lineage of Bharata kings, stretching across 48 generations. There are also hundreds of sub stories within Mahabharata. It even includes a summary of Ramayana within it. 

Jaya is one of the older names for Mahabharata. Jaya means victory. 

Mahabharat contains the essence of all Vedas in story form. Therefore, it is also referred to as Panchama Veda, or the fifth Veda.

There are 18 Mahapuranas. In addition there are 18 upapuranas which are lesser known. Several other compilations are also referred to as Puranas, outside of the Mahapurana and Upapurana categories. 

There are 18 Mahapuranas. This verse helps us remember the names of the Mahapuranas. It means  2 Pruanas starting with Ma – Matsya and Markandeya.  2 Puranas starting with Bha – Bhavishya and Bhagavata 3 Puranas starting with Bra – Brahma, Brahmanda and Brahma Vaivarta 4 Puranas starting with Va – Vayu, Vamana, Vishnu and Varaha 7 purana each starting with other letters – Agni, Narada, padma, Linha, Garuda, Kurma and Skanda.

Jaya refers to the victory of Dharma. Whether Pandavas win or Kauravas win is irrelevant. Whichever side is with Dharma that wins.Yato Dharmastato Jayaḥ is a phrase that is in Mahabharata and it means, Where there is Dharma, there will be Victory. This phrase is so powerful that it has been adopted as the motto of the Supreme Court of India. 

Naimisaranya is near Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. It is on the banks of the Gomati river. Naimisaranya is the place where Mahabharata is narrated by Ugrashrava Sauti. Naimisaranya is one of the most sacred tirthas of India. It was abode of tens of thousands of Rishis. The Ramayana, the Mahabharata and puranas are all believed to have been recited here.

Story telling was serious profession in olden days. The profession of story telling was Important in the propagation of itihaas. This practice also maintained the authenticity of the narration across generations. The earliest story tellers were Rama’s sons Luv and Kusha. In fact, Rama hears the story of Ramayana from his sons, though he does not know that they are his sons. This tradition of professional story telling still continues now in the form of Hari Katha. 

Critical Edition refers to a version of ancient texts. A critical edition attempts to recreate the original version of the text, discarding insertions that may have been made over a period of time and in different languages. It involves three very important and tedious steps. It collects all versions of the text from various sources and languages. A group of experts make judgements on which verser are authentic and which are later day interpolations. Finally, the authentic version is published, with all the other versions of each verse and comments included separately. The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute compiled the Critical Edition of Mahabharata. It was a giant research project with research conducted over five decades consulting 1,259 manuscripts. The Critical Edition of the Mahabharata has 89000+ verses and is published in 19 Volumes with over 15000  large size pages.

We did not hear Mahabharata directly from Ved Vyasa. Ved Vyasa narrated Mahabharata to his student Vaisampayana first. Vaisampayana then narrates the Mahabharat to King Janamejaya. Ugrashrava Sauti who was present at the occasion hears the narration and then travels to Naimisharanya.  Here he meets Rishi Saunaka and countless other Rishis. He narrates Mahabharat to the gathering of Rishis. This narration is what we read. Thus, it would be the third narration, the first being to Vaisampayana, the second being to Janamejaya and the third being to the Rishis.