Checked against the Critical Edition
Not in the text
Things everyone knows about the Mahabharata that the Critical Edition does not say. Each one is marked where it comes up on the atlas, and collected here. 29 so far.
The atlas follows the BORI Critical Edition, the text that the oldest manuscript families agree on. Every story below is real, in the sense that people have told it for centuries; it is only not in that text. We check each one by searching the Sanskrit e-text of the Critical Edition, chapter by chapter, and we note where the story does appear when we know. The stories about the making of the poem itself, Ganesha the scribe first among them, are told in full on Where the text comes from.
From later manuscripts and regional tellings
These are in the vulgate, the Southern recension or the Puranas, and in almost every retelling. The Critical Edition, which keeps only what the oldest manuscript families agree on, does not have them.
The story that Vyasa dictated the poem to Ganesha, who agreed to write it down only if Vyasa never paused, and that Vyasa slowed him with eight thousand eight hundred knotted verses, stands at the very start of the vulgate's first chapter and in almost every retelling. The Critical Edition has no Ganesha and no scribe: Vyasa composes, teaches, and the poem is recited aloud. The passage is missing from the Southern manuscripts and from the oldest Northern ones, so the editors set it aside as a later insertion.
TraditionalWhere the text comes from →
Also noted at Event 51: How the story was told
The neat story that the poem grew in three steps, Jaya of 8,800 verses, then Bharata of 24,000, then Mahabharata of 100,000, is a modern reading of the text's own numbers. The Critical Edition gives the name Jaya (1.56.19), the 24,000 (1.1.61) and the 100,000 (1.56.13); the 8,800 comes only from the Ganesha passage, which it does not have.
TraditionalWhere the text comes from →
Retellings often show Bhishma's vow sworn on the riverbank before Satyavati herself. In the text it is sworn to her father and the fishermen; she is brought to Shantanu afterwards.
TraditionalEvent 2: Bhishma's vow →
Also noted at Bhishma's road, stop 3: The terrible promise
The popular scene of Gandhari choosing blindness in protest at being married to a blind man without consent comes from retellings. The text says only that she bound her eyes out of devotion to her husband (1.103).
TraditionalEvent 5: Pandu, Kunti and Madri →
Many retellings have Kunti and the boys arrive as strangers whom the court does not believe. In the text the sages of Shatashringa vouch for them before the assembly (1.117).
TraditionalEvent 6: The birth of the Pandavas and the Kauravas →
In the vulgate and most retellings, the snake king Aryaka gives Bhima a drink that grants him the strength of ten thousand elephants. The Critical Edition has only the snakebites that undo the poison.
TraditionalBhima's road, stop 3: Poison and the river →
The moment in which Kunti recognises her son at the tournament and faints, elaborated in many retellings, is in the text a single line: she recognises him by his marks and faints, and Vidura revives her (1.126).
TraditionalEvent 7: Drona, the tournament and Karna →
The six deaths in the fire are treated lightly in most retellings. The text is blunt: a Nishada woman and her five sons die so that the Pandavas can be believed dead (1.136).
TraditionalEvent 8: The house of lac →
The famous line in which Draupadi refuses to let Karna compete because he is a suta is not in the Critical Edition. In the Critical Edition Karna is among the kings who try the bow and fail (1.179).
TraditionalEvent 9: Draupadi's svayamvara →
Also noted at Draupadi's road, stop 2: The bow nobody could string
The stories of Krishna's childhood among the cowherds, the butter, the flute and Radha come from the Harivamsha and the Puranas. The Mahabharata's main text picks up his story in Mathura.
TraditionalKrishna's road, stop 1: The city he had to leave →
In many retellings Subhadra herself drives the chariot during the abduction. In the text Arjuna drives (1.212).
TraditionalEvent 10: Half a kingdom: Indraprastha →
In most retellings Ulupi gives Arjuna a gift: no creature that lives in water can ever beat him. The Critical Edition ends the night in the snake palace without it.
TraditionalArjuna's road, stop 9: Under the river →
Most retellings call Chitrangada's city Manipura and put it in the far north-east. The Critical Edition calls it Manalura and reaches it along the eastern sea coast, so the marker sits on the Odisha coast. Nobody knows exactly where it was.
TraditionalArjuna's road, stop 10: East to the sea, south down the coast →
The famous line in which Draupadi mocks Duryodhana as 'a blind man's son' after he falls into the pool is not in the Critical Edition, which has only the Pandavas and their attendants laughing (2.43).
TraditionalEvent 11: Two Kuru courts →
Also noted at Draupadi's road, stop 5: The hall of illusions
The famous ending, where Krishna tears a blade of grass in two to show Bhima how to split Jarasandha and throw the halves apart, is not in the Critical Edition. There, Bhima simply breaks his back.
TraditionalBhima's road, stop 11: Wrestling the strongest king alive →
Draupadi's prayer to Krishna and Krishna's miraculous supply of endless cloth appear in many manuscripts and in nearly every retelling, but the Critical Edition editors excluded that passage as a later addition.
TraditionalEvent 12: The dice game →
Also noted at Draupadi's road, stop 7: Dragged by the hair
The famous story that the nymph Urvashi cursed Arjuna to live as a dancer for a year is not in the Critical Edition. There, Indra simply tells him to learn to dance, and the reason turns up in the thirteenth year.
TraditionalArjuna's road, stop 19: Five years in the city of the gods →
The idea that Duryodhana refused Yudhishthira's help, or that the Pandavas mocked him, comes from retellings. In the text he thanks his rescuers with shame and Yudhishthira lets him go with kind words (3.235).
TraditionalEvent 15: Duryodhana's cattle expedition and Draupadi's abduction →
The vulgate adds a long campaign afterwards in which Karna conquers the whole world for Duryodhana's sacrifice. The Critical Edition has no such conquest; Karna only tells Duryodhana the earth is already his.
TraditionalKarna's road, stop 9: Running from the sky-spirits →
The Gita has been read as a scripture on its own since Shankara's commentary, around the eighth century, and tradition gives it a day, Gita Jayanti, on the eleventh of the bright fortnight of Margashirsha. The epic itself gives no date.
TraditionalEvent 20: The Bhagavad Gita →
The story that Abhimanyu learnt the way into the wheel in his mother's womb, and fell asleep before the way out, is told in the vulgate and in most retellings; the Critical Edition has him say only that he was not taught the way out.
Karna's gift of his merit to Krishna in disguise, and the rain of flowers at his death, are not in the Critical Edition.
TraditionalEvent 38: Day seventeen: the wheel in the earth →
Also noted at Karna's road, stop 20: The wheel in the earth
Tradition keeps Bhishma's death on the eighth day of the bright fortnight of Magha, Bhishma Ashtami, and holds that he lay on the arrows for fifty-eight nights. The Critical Edition gives the month and the turn of the sun, not the day or the count.
TraditionalEvent 44: Bhishma lets go →
Tradition shows the spot at Bhalka Tirtha, between Veraval and Somnath, and the cremation at Dehotsarga on the Hiran river. Neither name is in the Critical Edition.
TraditionalEvent 48: The iron bolt →
Also noted at Krishna's road, stop 33: The iron bolt
Pilgrims follow the brothers' road beyond Badrinath to the Mana pass and the Swargarohini peaks, and tradition gives each of the five falls a spot on it. None of these places is named in the Critical Edition.
TraditionalEvent 49: The great departure →
From film, television and modern retellings
These come from staging choices and modern books. They are not in any manuscript.
Many screen and stage versions have Draupadi bargain openly with Bhima for Kichaka's death in front of others. In the text she goes to him secretly at night in the kitchen (4.16–4.21).
The frozen battlefield, the standing chariot in the middle of the armies and the hours given to the Gita in film and television are staging choices, not features of the text.
AdaptationEvent 20: The Bhagavad Gita →
Bhishma's statement that he can choose the moment of his death rests on Shantanu's boon in the Adi Parva. Retellings often add a formal vow made on this day; the text simply has him wait for the northern course of the sun.
AdaptationEvent 30: Day ten: the bed of arrows →
Krishna hiding the sun with his discus to trick Jayadratha out of hiding is a retelling. In the Critical Edition Jayadratha dies in the last light of the day, and the fighting goes on into the night.
Missing one? Suggest a correction with the chapter you think it is in, and we will look it up.