In the world of classical literature, the Mahabharata is unique in many respects. As an epic, it is the greatest-seven times as great as the Illiad and the Odyssey combined, and the grandest-animating the heart of India over two thousand years past and destined to lead humanity for thousands of years in future. It is the mightiest single endeavour of literary creation of any culture in human history. The effort to conceive the mind that conceived it is itself a liberal education, and a walk through its table-of-contents is more than a Sabbath day's journey. The translation was completed and serially published in thirteen years from AD 1883 to 1896 in one hundred fasciculi. The original edition was out-of-print within the lifetime of Mr Ganguli, and is made available once again.