Retelling Kurukshetra Across Asia: A Digital Comparative Study of the Sanskrit Mahabharata, Tamil Villiparatam, and Malay Hikayat Pandawa Lima

Abstract

The Kurukshetra war is the narrative and ethical centre of the Mahabharata, yet its regional retellings do not reproduce the war as a fixed sequence. This study compares the five war books, the Bhishma, Drona, Karna, Shalya, and Sauptika parvas, in three influential textual traditions: the Sanskrit Mahabharata, the Tamil Villiparatam, and the Malay Hikayat Pandawa Lima. Using qualitative comparative textual analysis, episodes were aligned across the three corpora and coded as preservation, modification, addition, reduction, or cultural localization. The comparison identifies a stable narrative architecture, including the succession of commanders, the deaths of Abhimanyu, Drona, Karna, and Shalya, the mace duel between Bhima and Duryodhana, and Asvatthama’s nocturnal attack. Around this common structure, however, each tradition reorganizes the ethical and emotional meaning of war. The Sanskrit text provides the fullest tactical, genealogical, and dharmic elaboration. The Tamil version condenses many combat sequences while heightening devotional mediation, guru authority, divine grace, and scenes of affective recognition. The Malay version is the most expansive and transformative, incorporating Javanese-derived names, named weapons and battle formations, supernatural interventions, courtly mourning, family-centred pathos, and extended dialogue. Karna, Shalya, and the bereaved women receive especially pronounced humanization in the Malay narrative. These differences show that regional epic transmission operates through selective fidelity rather than literal equivalence. The Kurukshetra narrative remains recognizable because major plot functions are preserved, while local literary aesthetics determine which actions are expanded, moralized, ritualized, or omitted. The study contributes to comparative epic studies by placing Sanskrit, Tamil, and Malay materials within one analytical frame and by demonstrating how translation, adaptation, and localization jointly sustain the transregional life of the Mahabharata.