Sources

Everything in this atlas can be traced to a text or a reference. Here is what we used, how we cite it, and where the map’s positions come from.

The text

For how the text came to be, from its own account of its making to the Pune edition, see Where the text comes from.

The Mahābhārata, Critical Edition. Edited by V. S. Sukthankar, S. K. Belvalkar, P. L. Vaidya and others. Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, 1933–1966, 19 volumes. The scholarly text that this atlas follows. Chapters are cited as parva.chapter, so 2.43 is the Sabha Parva, chapter 43.
Bibek Debroy, The Mahabharata. Penguin India, 2010–2014, 10 volumes. The English translation of the Critical Edition used for every summary here. The ten volumes follow the eighteen parvas in order, from the Adi Parva in volume 1 to the Svargarohana Parva at the end of volume 10; the Bhagavad Gita is in volume 5. Each volume’s table of contents gives the section numbers.
J. A. B. van Buitenen, The Mahābhārata. University of Chicago Press, 1973–1978, 3 volumes (Books 1–5). A second translation of the Critical Edition, used to cross-check readings from the Adi through the Udyoga Parva.
Kisari Mohan Ganguli, The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa. 1883–1896. The public-domain complete translation. It follows the longer vulgate text, not the Critical Edition, so it is used only to identify passages that the atlas labels as traditional.

Parvas with events on the atlas: Adi Parva, Sabha Parva, Aranyaka Parva, Virata Parva, Udyoga Parva, Bhishma Parva, Drona Parva, Karna Parva, Shalya Parva, Sauptika Parva, Stri Parva, Shanti Parva, Anushasana Parva, Ashvamedhika Parva, Ashramavasika Parva, Mausala Parva, Mahaprasthanika Parva, Svargarohana Parva. Every event panel ends with the exact chapter ranges it draws on.

How statements are labelled

Critical Edition the Critical Edition text contains this.
Traditional found in later manuscripts, regional versions, or widely repeated retellings, but not in the Critical Edition.
Adaptation a choice made by a film, television series, comic or novel.

Where the places come from

No place in the epic has a surveyed location. Positions on the map follow these references, and every marker carries a confidence label.

Joseph E. Schwartzberg (ed.), A Historical Atlas of South Asia. University of Chicago Press, 1978; second impression, Oxford University Press, 1992. The standard scholarly atlas; its plates on the epic and Vedic periods are the main guide for kingdom positions.
Bimala Churn Law, Historical Geography of Ancient India. Société Asiatique de Paris, 1954. Identifications of rivers, cities and peoples named in the text.
Nundo Lal Dey, The Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaeval India. Luzac, 1927. Older but still useful for traditional identifications of place names.
B. B. Lal, “Excavation at Hastināpura and other explorations in the Upper Gaṅgā and Sutlej basins”. Ancient India 10–11, 1954–1955. The excavation that links modern Hastinapur to an early settlement.
Natural Earth (naturalearthdata.com), public domain. The present-day coastline, rivers and lakes drawn under the kingdoms, at 1:50m scale, simplified.
geoBoundaries (geoboundaries.org; Runfola et al. 2020), gbOpen ADM2. The present-day districts behind the optional painted view, for India and Sri Lanka (ODbL 1.0), Bangladesh and Bhutan (CC BY 3.0 IGO), Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal (public domain), simplified and clipped. Each district is coloured by the kingdom whose centre is nearest; the epic names no borders, so the painted view is an artist's impression, and the sketched blobs are one toggle away.

The Sarasvati, central to the story, is drawn as the seasonal Ghaggar that Natural Earth records today; ancient river courses differed. Kingdoms are deliberately wobbly blobs centred on a plausible position, never borders.

Secondary references used for the character cards

Vyasa Online encyclopedia (vyasaonline.com). Entry-by-entry summaries of the characters with parva references, used to cross-check the physical descriptions and iconography on the cards. A compilation rather than a translation; where it and the text differ, the text wins.
Nitin Rastogi, “Flags and their meanings in Mahabharata” (nitswe.blogspot.com, 2018). A compiled list of the warriors’ chariot standards, used to check the crests on the cards against the Bhishma and Drona Parvas.

Chanted recordings

Three events have a “Hear it in Sanskrit” button under their title, which plays a passage chanted in Sanskrit: the Bhagavad Gita, the story of Savitri, and two hymns to Durga. The recordings are from Stotra Samhita Vāṇī, chanted verse by verse in each verse’s own metre by Vāgdhenu, an AI model for metrical Sanskrit chant by Prathosh A P. They are used with permission, and with thanks. The chant is ordinary recitation, not Vedic chant. It follows the common printed text rather than the Critical Edition, so each recording carries a note on how the two relate, and the hymns that the Critical Edition leaves out are labelled Traditional. The player loads from YouTube only when you press play.

Words to know

The short definitions that appear in event panels, collected in one place.

Parva parvan: One of the eighteen big books of the Mahabharata. Each parva is divided into chapters, so 2.43 means the Sabha Parva, chapter 43.
Critical Edition: The version of the Mahabharata that scholars in Pune assembled between 1933 and 1966 by comparing hundreds of old manuscripts and keeping only what they share. This atlas follows it.
Rajasuya rājasūya: A huge royal ceremony. A king who completes it is recognised as a king of kings by all the rulers who attend.
Sabha sabhā: A royal assembly hall, and the gathering of nobles held inside it.
Dice game dyūta: A game of dice played for stakes. A king was expected to accept a challenge to play, which is why Yudhishthira cannot refuse.
Dharma dharma: The right way to act: duty, law and justice all at once. Characters in the epic argue constantly about what dharma demands.
Forest exile vanavāsa: Living in the forest as an exile, wearing deerskin and bark, far from cities and thrones.
Year in hiding ajñātavāsa: The thirteenth year of exile, spent in disguise in a town. If the Pandavas had been recognised, the twelve-year exile would have started all over again.
Never-empty bowl akṣaya-pātra: A copper bowl given to Yudhishthira by the sun god. It never runs out of food until Draupadi has eaten her share.
Brahmana brāhmaṇa: A member of the priestly and scholarly class.
Kshatriya kṣatriya: A member of the warrior and ruling class: kings, princes and fighters.
Divine weapon astra: A weapon powered by the gods, usually released with a spoken formula through an ordinary bow and arrow.
Holy place tīrtha: A sacred spot, often beside a river or the sea, that people travel long distances to visit.
Gandharva gandharva: Sky-dwelling musicians and warriors who serve the gods. Chitrasena's gandharvas capture Duryodhana.
Yaksha yakṣa: Nature spirits who guard treasures and lakes for Kubera, the god of wealth.
Boon vara: A promised gift or favour, usually from a god or from someone who has been pleased. Once a boon is given, it must be honoured, whatever is asked.
Conquest of the directions digvijaya: A campaign in which a king's champions ride out north, south, east and west to make other rulers accept him as overlord.
Akshauhini akṣauhiṇī: A full army division. The epic counts it as 21,870 chariots, 21,870 elephants, 65,610 horsemen and 109,350 foot soldiers.
Envoy dūta: A messenger sent between rulers to negotiate. Envoys were protected and not supposed to be harmed, which is why Duryodhana's plan to seize Krishna is so shocking.
Suta sūta: A charioteer and bard, ranked below the warrior class. Karna was raised in a suta family, which the princes never let him forget.
Commander-in-chief senāpati: The general in overall command of an army.
Atiratha atiratha: A warrior so skilled that he counts as equal to many chariot-fighters at once. Bhishma grades the warriors on both sides this way.
Bhagavad Gita Bhagavad-gītā: The Song of the Lord: Krishna's teaching to Arjuna on the battlefield about duty, action and the self. It fills chapters 23 to 40 of the Bhishma Parva.
Yoga yoga: In the Gita, not a set of postures but a discipline: a way of yoking the mind to a goal. Krishna teaches several: the yoga of knowledge, the yoga of action done without wanting its fruit, and the yoga of devotion.
Vishvarupa viśvarūpa: The all-form: the shape of the whole universe in one body that Krishna shows Arjuna in the Gita after giving him divine sight to see it.
Rules of war dharma-yuddha: Fighting by agreed rules: only equals fight each other, fighting stops at sunset, and anyone who surrenders or has lost his weapons is spared.
Niyoga niyoga: An old custom by which a childless widow could have a son with a brother or a sage of her husband's family. The child counted as the dead husband's heir. This is how Dhritarashtra, Pandu and Vidura were born.
Svayamvara svayaṃvara: A ceremony at which a princess chose her husband from the assembled kings, sometimes after a contest of skill. Draupadi's had an archery test; the Kashi princesses' was interrupted by Bhishma.
Rakshasa rākṣasa: A man-eating forest demon, often able to change shape. Hidimba and Baka are rakshasas; Bhima's son Ghatotkacha is half rakshasa.
Naga nāga: Serpent people who live in rivers and under the earth, able to take human form. Arjuna marries the naga princess Ulupi.
Teacher's fee guru-dakṣiṇā: The gift a pupil owes a teacher at the end of training. Drona asked his princes for the capture of Drupada, and asked Ekalavya for his thumb.
House of lac jatugṛha: A house built of lac, resin, hemp and ghee so that it would burn in an instant. Duryodhana had one built at Varanavata to kill the Pandavas.
Vow pratijñā: A solemn promise that could not be taken back. Bhishma's vow never to marry or rule is the most famous; Bhima's vows at the dice game are the most terrible.
Apsara apsarā: A celestial nymph of Indra's heaven. Urvashi curses Arjuna when he refuses her.
Vyuha vyūha: A battle formation. Each morning the commander arranges his army in a shape with a name: a crane, an eagle, a wheel, a sea. The other side answers with a shape of its own.
Samshaptakas saṁśaptaka: Warriors who have sworn together to fight to the death. The Trigartas take this oath against Arjuna and draw him away from the main battle day after day.
Sauptika sauptika: 'Of the sleepers.' The night raid on the sleeping Pandava camp after the eighteenth day, and the name of the parva that tells it.
Rajadharma rājadharma: The duty of a king: how to rule, tax, punish, make war and keep order. The first and longest subject Bhishma teaches Yudhishthira from the bed of arrows.
Moksha mokṣa: Release: freedom from the round of birth and death. The last part of Bhishma's teaching, the Mokshadharma, is about it.
Uttarayana uttarāyaṇa: The sun's northward turn after the winter solstice, an auspicious time to die. Bhishma holds on to his life until it comes.
Ashvamedha aśvamedha: The horse sacrifice. A consecrated horse wanders for a year with a warrior escort; every king whose land it crosses must fight or submit, and the horse is offered at the end. Yudhishthira holds one to wash away the war.
Mahaprasthana mahāprasthāna: The great departure: walking out of the world and on until death. The Pandavas' last journey, and the name of the parva that tells it.
Svarga svarga: Heaven, the world of the gods, where warriors who die well are said to go. The last parva is the Svargarohana, the ascent to heaven.

Corrections

If a summary misreads the text, a chapter reference is wrong, or a place could be better located, please open an issue on GitHub with the passage or reference. The data files are public in the same repository.