Narada
Nārada’s questionnaire on government (Mahābhārata, Sabhāparvan 5)
Traditional attribution
Nārada’s questionnaire on government (Mahābhārata, Sabhāparvan 5)
कच्चिदध्याय (महाभारत सभापर्व ५)
With the Pāṇḍavas’ assembly hall just inaugurated, Nārada visits Yudhiṣṭhira and puts to him dozens of questions on good government: whether he consults loyal counsellors in secret, pays the army on time, protects farmers with loans of seed, keeps the judges incorruptible, cares for widows and the helpless. It is a small treatise on statecraft (nīti) that sums up the learning of the arthaśāstra as a king’s examination of conscience.
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Authorship note
A chapter of the Mahābhārata in which Nārada questions Yudhiṣṭhira with questions beginning “kaccit” (“do you…?”). An ascribed epic discourse.
Editions and translations
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English
Narada
The Mahābhārata, vol. 2: The Book of the Assembly Hall; The Book of the Forest
The Conscious LibraryThe Mahābhārata, vol. 2: The Book of the Assembly Hall; The Book of the Forest
University of Chicago Press, 1975
Translation: J. A. B. van Buitenen
Other works by Narada
- Nārada Bhakti Sūtra (Nārada’s Aphorisms on Devotion) · 1150
- Nārada Smṛti (Nārada’s Treatise on Law) · 500
- Nārada Purāṇa (Nāradīya Purāṇa) · 1000
- Bṛhannāradīya Purāṇa · 850
- Nārada Pañcarātra (Jñānāmṛtasāra Saṃhitā)
- Nāradīya Śikṣā
- Saṅgītamakaranda
- Ṛgvedic hymns ascribed to Nārada (8.13; 9.104–105) · 1000
- Nārada’s stanzas on the son (Aitareya Brāhmaṇa VII.13) · 700
- Nārada’s abridged Rāmāyaṇa (Rāmāyaṇa I.1) · 100
- Nāradaparivrājaka Upaniṣad
Sources
- van Buitenen, J. A. B. (trad.). The Mahābhārata, vol. 2: The Book of the Assembly Hall; The Book of the Forest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975 (Sabhāparvan 5–11); y The Mahābhārata, edición crítica, Śāntiparvan (Nārāyaṇīya), Poona: BORI, 1949–1966.
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