Anybody familiar with Hindu legend Mahabharata?

[dsri]

I have a short story synopsis for a science fiction short stor based on the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Can someone familiar, ideally intimate, with the epic give me feedback?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Considering that the Mahabharata is one of the longest works of fiction ever written (2 million + words), I would suspect there's little chance of a short story being able to fully plagiarise it. And even if it did, I think the copyright expired a few thousand years ago.

 

[SilentRoamer]

I don't but it it immediately made me think of the Lord of Light with Zelazny which I understand to be based largely on Hindu mythology (although I haven't read it). I thought there may be others and a quick search found this which has many suggestions and links.

Fantasy inspired artwork of characters from the Hindu mythological epic,"The Mahabharata" by molee • r/Fantasy

 

[Ursa major]

This thread has been moved from Feedback. (It ought to receive more useful attention here.)

 

[Fedos]

I actually have entire volumes of the Mahabharata to read (I have ten volumes) and its unabridged. I'm on volume one right now three hundred something pages in. I don't think you can do justice to the Mahabharata with a short story, maybe just select a single episode or narrative in it and work from there.

 

[dsri]

I actually have entire volumes of the Mahabharata to read (I have ten volumes) and its unabridged. I'm on volume one right now three hundred something pages in.
I don't think you can do justice to the Mahabharata with a short story, maybe just select a single episode or narrative in it and work from there.

Its amazing you're reading the unabridged version! I am not trying to condense the entire epic into a short story. A single narrative is exactly what I'm trying to do, NOT plagiarism. I am beginning with a scenario when a present day rebel/skeptic travels back in time, becomes inspired to stay on and become Sanjaya, the narrator of an important episode of the epic : the Gita. How does that sound?

 

[Fedos]

Its amazing you're reading the unabridged version! I am not trying to condense the entire epic into a short story. A single narrative is exactly what I'm trying to do, NOT plagiarism. I am beginning with a scenario when a present day rebel/skeptic travels back in time, becomes inspired to stay on and become Sanjaya, the narrator of an important episode of the epic : the Gita. How does that sound?

I'm actually in a period of developing some sort of overarching Hindu mythology for one of my own worlds, which is why I am tackling The Mahabharata, amongst other works. And I suppose as an aspiring fantasy author it's just good to have a grasp of these kinds of things. But what you describe does sound interesting and I would wholeheartedly recommend you go through with it.

 

[hitmouse]

most efforts select some well-known bits of the epic (see the excellent Peter Brook film) such as the Bhagavad Gita. An attempt to summarise the whole thing is likely to be unsuccessful.

 

[dsri]

I'm actually in a period of developing some sort of overarching Hindu mythology for one of my own worlds, which is why I am tackling The Mahabharata, amongst other works. And I suppose as an aspiring fantasy author it's just good to have a grasp of these kinds of things. But what you describe does sound interesting and I would wholeheartedly recommend you go through with it.

If you need some assistance for forming your world, let me know. Depending on your market, you could be as inventive as you want without hurting religious sentiments of believers/practitioners and thereby losing readers.