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Virata Parva, also known as the “Book of Virata”, is the fourth of eighteen books of the Indian Epic Mahabharata. Virata Parva has 4 sub-books and 72 chapters.
Contents
It discusses the 13th year of exile which the Pandavas must spend incognito to avoid another 12 years of exile in the forest. They do so in the court of Virata. They assume a variety of concealed identities. Yudhishthira assumes the identity of game entertainer to the king and calls himself Kanka, Bhima of a cook Ballava, Arjuna teaches dance and music as enuch Brihannala and dresses as a woman, Nakula tends horses as Granthika, Sahadeva herds cows as Tantipala, and Draupadi maids as Sairandhri to queen Shudeshna.
Structure and chapters
This book has 4 sub-parvas (sub-books or little books) and 72 adhyayas (sections, chapters). The following are the sub-parvas:
1. Pandava pravesha parva (sections: 1 - 13) 2. Kichaka-vadha parva (sections: 14 - 24) 3. Go-harana parva (sections: 25 - 69) 4. Vaivahika parva (sections: 70 - 72)English translations
Several translations of the Sanskrit book Virata Parva in English are available. Two translations from 19th century, now in public domain, are those by Kisari Mohan Ganguli and Manmatha Nath Dutt. The translations vary with each translator's interpretations.
J. A. B. van Buitenen completed an annotated edition of Virata Parva, based on critically edited and least corrupted version of Mahabharata known in 1975. Debroy, in 2011, notes that updated critical edition of Virata Parva, with spurious and corrupted text removed, has 4 sub-books, 67 adhyayas (chapters) and 1,736 shlokas (verses). Debroy's translation of a critical edition of Virata Parva appears in Volume 4 of his series.
Clay Sanskrit Library has published a 15 volume set of the Mahabharata which includes a translation of Virata Parva by Kathleen Garbutt. This translation is modern and uses an old manuscript of the Epic. The translation does not remove verses and chapters now widely believed to be spurious and smuggled into the Epic in 1st or 2nd millennium AD.
Quotations and teachings
Pandava Pravesha Parva, Chapter 4:
A wise man should never contract friendship with the wife of the king nor with other attendants of his, nor with those whom he despises and who are hostile to him.
Pandava Pravesha Parva, Chapter 14:
Tell me, O lady, who is this bewitching girl of fine beauty, endued with the grace of a goddess, and whose she is and where she comes from. She has brought me to subjection by grinding my heart. I think there is no other medicine to heal me, except her.
Kichaka-vadha Parva, Chapter 21:
That wicked-souled Kichaka is war like, proud, outrager of female modesty and engrossed in all objects of pleasure. He steals money from the king. He extorts money from others, even if they cry in woe; he never stays in paths of rectitude nor does he even feel inclined to virtue. He is wicked-souled, of sinful disposition, impudent, villaneous and afflicted by Cupid's shaft. Although I have repeatedly rejected him, he will, I am sure, outrage me, whenever he happens to see me.
Go-harana Parva, Chapter 38: