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As I know, in Mahabharata, Vyasa says there was no fight between Karna and Arjuna after the first one got Vasavi Shakti. But, Bhishma, Kripa, Shalya and Dhritarashtra narrate about the failures of Karna in the Virata War.

But, other versions of the Mahabharata such as Jaimini Bharata or Kumara Vyasa Mahabharata do not mention the event. While according to Romesh C. Dutt's translation, Arjuna simply defeated Duryodhana while dodging the other warriors.

On this Facebook page, they mention some versions that do not contain the Virata War, and mention that Washburn Hopkins considers most of Virata War or the whole parva an interpolation.

Although it is currently included in the BORI Critical Edition, I want to know if BORI scholars acknowledge that Virata War could be an interpolation.

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  • AFAIK there is no ISKCON version. What you may be referring to is summary of Mahabharata where in they skip lot of things. – user16618 Dec 17 '18 at 4:38
  • 'according to the BORI scholars' - please add this to title. Your question already links to an FB post which argues it's an interpolation. So asking if it's an interpolation in the title is misleading. – sv. Dec 18 '18 at 2:48
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    many of the Western scholars have said for the last 150 years that it was an interpolation. But among Indian sanskrit scholars, the sanskrit and general tenor of the writing is in accord with the Mahabharata. – Swami Vishwananda Dec 18 '18 at 5:13
  • Can you show me the name of the book or the website for your affirmation? – Gabriel Alexander Gonzalez Agu Dec 20 '18 at 6:11
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because user doesn't want answer from scriptures. – YDS Dec 21 '18 at 16:30
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Virata war is NOT an interpolation according to the BORI scholars. Beacause Critical Edition Prepared by Scholars at Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute BORI > Devanagari (and other Indian scripts from each sarga page) > ४ विराटपर्वम् > ५६ contains the below verse:

वैशम्पायन उवाच||

ततो वैकर्तनं जित्वा पार्थो वैराटिमब्रवीत् |

एतन्मां प्रापयानीकं यत्र तालो हिरण्मयः ||१||

अत्र शान्तनवो भीष्मो रथेऽस्माकं पितामहः |

काङ्क्षमाणो मया युद्धं तिष्ठत्यमरदर्शनः ||२||

It's translation would be

Vaisampayana said, 'Having defeated Vikartana's son [i.e Karna], Arjuna said unto the son of Virata, 'Take me towards that division where yonder device of a golden palmyra is seen. There our grandfather, Santanu's son, like unto a celestial, waiteth, desirous of an encounter with me.'

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    It does not answer exactly to my question, I wanted to be cited from studies of BORI scholars, in other words, books or indexes of BORI scholars. – Gabriel Alexander Gonzalez Agu Dec 18 '18 at 23:44

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