Stri Parva

Dhritarashtra and the royal women lamenting the casualties of the Kurukshetra War, a scene from the Stri Parva illustrated by Evelyn Stuart Hardy

The Stri Parva (Sanskrit: स्त्री पर्व), or the "Book of the Women," is the eleventh of eighteen books of the Indian epic Mahabharata. It traditionally has 4 parts and 27 chapters, as does the critical edition.[1][2][3][4]

Sometimes spelled Stree Parva, it describes the grief of women because of the war.[2] The parva recites the grief of men too, such as of Dhritrashtra and the Pandava brothers.[5] The chapters include a treatise by Vidura and Vyasa on passage rites with words of comfort for those who have lost loved ones, as well as the saṃsāra fable of the man and a well.[6][7]

  1. ^ Ganguli, K.M. (1883-1896) "Stri Parva" in The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (12 Volumes). Calcutta
  2. ^ a b Dutt, M.N. (1902) The Mahabharata (Volume 11): Stree Parva. Calcutta: Elysium Press
  3. ^ van Buitenen, J.A.B. (1973) The Mahabharata: Book 1: The Book of the Beginning. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, p 477
  4. ^ Debroy, B. (2010) The Mahabharata, Volume 1. Gurgaon: Penguin Books India, pp xxiii - xxvi
  5. ^ Murdoch, J. (1898) The Mahabharata - An English Abridgment. London: Christian Literature Society for India, ppp 105-107
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Agarwal2002 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ van Nooten, B. A. (1972) The Mahabharata. Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0805725643