Mahabharat is an Indian Hindi-language epic television series based on the ancient Sanskrit epic Sanatan Hindu Dharma spiritual, devotional religious scripture Mahabharata. The original airing consisted of a total of 94 episodes and were broadcast from 2 October 1988 to 24 June 1990 on Doordarshan. It was produced by B. R. Chopra and directed by his son, Ravi Chopra. The music was composed by Raj Kamal. The script was written by Pandit Narendra Sharma, based on the epic composed by Maharishi Veda Vyasa. The dialogues were penned by Rahi Masoom Raza. Costumes for the series were provided by Maganlal Dresswala. The serial claims to have used the Critical Edition of Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute as its basic source with Vishnu Sitaram Sukthankar and Shripad Krishna Belwalkar as its primary editor.
Each episode is 40âÂÂ46 minutes long and begins with a title song that consisted of lyrical content and two verses from the Bhagavad Gita. The title song was sung and the verses rendered by singer Mahendra Kapoor. The title song is followed by a narration by Indian voice-artist Harish Bhimani as a personification of Time, detailing the current circumstances and highlighting the spiritual significance of the content of the episodes.
Mahabharat Katha, another part of the serial was aired on 1997 which covers all the untold stories about Karna's marriage with Padmavati, Arjuna's marriage with ChitrÃÂngadÃÂ and Ulupi, and stories about Ghatotkacha, Barbarika, Vrishaketu, Babruvahana, conspiracies of Viprachitti, Ashwamedha Yajna, Dushala's story and aftermath of the Kurukshetra War, which are not covered in the original series.
The series covers the story of epic Mahabharata with Krishna, Pandavas, Kauravas being the main focus of the epic.
The show begins with Emperor Bharata giving more importance to 'Capacity' than to 'Birth'. He shows the birth of Bhishma and his oath, birth of Pandu, Dhritarashtra and Vidura and birth of Pandavas and Kauravas. The story then focuses on the childhood of Lord Krishna.
Elsewhere, Dronacharya teaches Pandavas and Kauravas warfare, and after completion asks them to defeat his enemy king Drupada as payment for services or Guru Dakshina. Pandavas do so and give half of Drupad's kingdom to Drona. Dhritarashtra makes Yudhishthira ( the eldest son of Pandu) the crown prince of Hastinapur. Shakuni (the maternal uncle of the Kauravas) and Duryodhana the eldest of the Kauravas hatch a plan to burn Pandavas and Kunti alive, but they survive and go into hiding, letting the rumour spread that they died in the fire. Duryodhana is made crown prince of Hastinapur.
Arjuna the best fighter among the Pandavas wins the hand of Draupadi in her swayamvara. Later, Yudhishthira is made the king of Indraprastha and Pandavas conduct Rajsuya Yagna where Draupadi insults Duryodhana. Later Duryodhana has his revenge by first defeating Yudhisthira in a rigged game of dice, in which Yudhisthira stakes his kingdom, his brothers and Draupadi and loses all, Duryodhana tries to disrobe Draupadi in front of the whole court, but she is saved by lord Krishna, then the Pandavas along with Draupadi are sent to an exile of 12 years and 1 year of living in anonymity. After the period of exile is over Duryodhana argues that the Pandavas violated the condition of anonymity in their last year of exile, therefore they must spend another 12 years in exile followed by another year of exile in anonymity. This conflict begins to sow the seed for the Mahabharata War.
Arjuna and Subhadra's son Abhimanyu marries Uttara. Krishna tries to make peace between both parties. Indra in the disguise of a Brahmin took Karna's armor and earrings. Kunti's sorrow on the corpse of Karna reveals Karna's true identity of being the eldest Pandava.
Before Mahabharata War, Shri Krishna enlightens Arjuna about the "Bhagavad Gita" and shows his Virata Swaroopa to Arjuna. The latter shows the deaths of Bhishma, Drona, Karna, Abhimanyu, Shalya, Shakuni, Jayadrata, Ghatotkacha, 100 Kauravas, 5 sons of Draupadi and many other warriors in the war leading to the victory of Pandavas over Kauravas. Only 5 Pandavas, Satyaki, Yuyutsu, Krishna, Ashwatthama, Kritavarma and Kripacharya survive. Gandhari holds Krishna responsible for her sons' death and curses that his family will also get destroyed. The show ends with Yudhishthir's Rajyabhishek and Bhishma's death.
According to production team member Kishore Malhotra, the total cost of producing the series was . According to Director Ravichopra each episode was made up of â¹6.5 lakh to â¹7 lakh. Casting for the series began in 1986 and shooting started off in mid-1988. Show was shot mostly at Mumbai's Film City, and the grand battle of Kurukshetra was shot in Rajasthan, with thousands of extras to fill the screen.
The series was initially submitted to the channel for 104 episodes which was later shortened to 94 episodes.
15,000 people applied to play different roles in the Mahabharat TV series. The casting team led by Gufi Paintal shortlisted them and called around 1,500 for video screen tests Almost all actors in the series were newcomers, barring Raj Babbar who played King Bharat, Debashree Roy who played Satyavati. Nitish Bharadwaj was chosen by B.R. Chopra, Ravi Chopra, Pandit Narendra Sharma and Rahi Masoom Raza, to play the central role of Krishna, at the age of 23. Initially, he was chosen for playing Vidura. But Virendra Razdan was cast for it as B.R.Chopra considered Bharadwaj young to play the role. Then Bharadwaj was offered to play Nakul and Sahadev, but he rejected and wanted to play Abhimanyu. Days later, he was called and finalized to play Krishna. Firoz Khan was chosen to portray the character of Arjuna (which he later adopted as his screen name, to not become confused with a more popular actor of the same name) despite being rejected in auditions. Asian games gold medalist Praveen Kumar was selected to portray Bhima after Chopra was looking for someone "who could look the robust historical character". Around six actresses were shortlisted for the role of Draupadi, including Juhi Chawla, who opted out of the show as she had bagged a film. Ramya Krishnan and Roopa Ganguly were the final names, and at last Roopa Ganguly was chosen, as her Hindi was good. Govinda and Chunky Pandey were signed for the role of Abhimanyu, but they opted out when they bagged films. Later, Master Mayur played the role. Mukesh Khanna who wished to play role of Arjun was initially offered the role of Duryodhan. But later he was signed for Dhronacharya. When Vijayendra Ghadge dropped his role of Bhisma, Khanna got the role of Bhishma. Puneet Issar was offered to play the role of Bheem but was cast as Duryodhan on his wish. The casting director of the show, Gufi Paintal was offered role of Shakuni by the makers of Mahabharat.
Mahabharat's music was composed by Raj Kamal and lyrics were penned by Pandit Narendra Sharma and Bhring Tupkari. Some songs were taken from works of devotional writers like Surdas, Raskhan etc. Apart from main songs there are also several short couplets, which covered the summary of each episode. All of these verses were sung by Mahendra Kapoor.
In India the series was originally broadcast on DD National. It was shown in the United Kingdom by the BBC, where it achieved audience figures of 5 million. It was also the first programme broadcast on BBC Two after its 1991 revamp, but it had also been shown late at night on BBC One the previous year.
The show was again telecast on DD Bharati from 28 March 2020, on DD Retro from 13 April 2020, on Colors TV from 4 May 2020 as well as Star Bharat during the lockdown due to coronavirus.
Ganguly was applauded for her performance in the Vastraharan sequence in which Draupadi is disrobed. Ravi Chopra later disclosed that she was originally weeping while enacting in the Vastraharan sequence and the crew members had to console her later to make her stop. The sequence is often claimed to be the most climactic one of the series. For the sequence Chopra recreated the visual effect of the Vastraharan sequence of Babubhai Mistry's Mahabharat (1965) starring Padmini as Draupadi. His visual effects won more favour than that of the 1965 film and has still been considered by a part of critics to be the most brilliant in line. of the most successful television series in Indian television history. In common with the "Ramayana" serial, the broadcasting of a Mahabharat episode was associated with the simultaneous emptying of streets in the cities and people leaving work early to watch it. Along with general audience many big names from Hindi film industry like Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Jeetendra, Hema Malini and Dharmendra also praised the show.
During its rerun in COVID-19 lockdown in India, it became the second most watched Indian TV show after Ramayan (1987). In week 13, it garnered 145.8 million impressions with both morning and evening slots combined on DD Bharati. After Ramayan ended, Mahabharat became the most watched TV show until its end. The series ended with 22.9 million viewership.
The series was uploaded onto the website "Rajshri.com" along with its dubbed Tamil version. Home video of the Bengali-dubbed version of this series has been released by Heart Video. In 2019, Pen India Ltd bought the rights of the show and uploaded all the episodes on its devotional YouTube channel Pen Bhakti including its spin-off series Mahabharat Katha.
Mahabharat along with Ramayan (1987), became one of the most successful television series based on an epic in Indian television history.
Many actors became popular through their appearances in this series.