Gullapalli BuchiRamaya Sastry spoke about the Mahabharatha so well and with so much scholarship since he has been specialising in its exposition for years. The Mahabharatha is considered by many as not so conducive to devotion as the Bhagavatha, for instance, or the Ramayana, but if once you know the taste, no one will give it up or consider it as of lower value. It is called the Fifth Veda, not without reason. The Vedas reveal things that are beyond the reach of the intellect. The truths declared by the Vedas are made practicable and simple, interesting and instructive, by means of stories and homilies in the Mahabharatha. The Purva Mimamsa (an inquiry into the ritualistic action part of the Veda) deals with the path of worldly desire and the Uttara Mimamsa with the path of renunciation. The Purva Mimamsa deals with the reason (karana) and the Uttara Mimamsa with the duty (karyam), which is wisdom (jnanam). In the Mahabharatha, both paths are fully explained, so it is called the Fifth...
Droupadi praying in distress from the assembly hall of the Kauravas is an instance in point. The Mahabharatha proves times and again that the Lord answers prayers that come out of faith and agony in yearning. A cowherder called Maladhasa was determined to see the Lord as He was described in the sacred texts he had heard expounded in the village temple by a pandit. So he prayed and prayed to the “black Lord riding on the white bird” all the time his cows were pasturing in the fields. Eleven days passed, but there was no sign of the “black Lord riding the white bird”. Maladhasa had forgotten to take food and drink during all those days and had become weak - too weak to walk or talk. At last, the Lord melted at his entreaties and presented Himself before him as an old Brahmin. But the Brahmin was not riding a white bird, nor was he black, beautifully black, as the pandit had described.
