I am looking for original Sanskrit texts of the Mahabharata, Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita. Is it possible to find scanned versions of these texts online?
7
-
What do you mean by original and scanned? In the ancient times people used to scribe on palm leaves and eventually it came into modern print forms. Most of the Gitas around have Sanskrit text in tact with very insignificant variations. Mahabharata is said to be altered so versions may vary. And Ramayana being much older may have many alternate readings.– srinivasacarya dasaDec 3, 2014 at 1:09
-
@srinivasacaryadasa I am looking for the oldest available version of these texts.– AdhvaithaDec 3, 2014 at 2:03
-
Well for Gita pretty much any sampradaya can provide one with the original sanskrit. You can get one here bhagavatgita.ru/files/Bhagavad-gita_As_It_Is.pdf For Ramayan and Mahabharat you can see valmikiramayan.net and sacred-texts.com but I am not sure of what sampradaya the authors belong to and how authentically it was transmitted down.– srinivasacarya dasaDec 3, 2014 at 4:30
-
If by the word "original" you mean exactly what I suppose, then unfortunately you can not find any. What you see around is all tempered, fiddled text. Appending "as-it-is" to a text's name doesn't make it original. So you should aim to find, the OLDEST text available for the titles mentioned. But still for that you may need to dig at British libraries, Or Vatican Secret library, I guess. In India you won't find anything older than 200 yrs. Remember India was under foreign (Anti-Hindu) rule for >800 years. So Truth is now fragmented.– HinduDec 3, 2014 at 12:22
-
BTW Hinduism is NEVER supposed to be on paper, in the first place. So the word "Original" used with 'Text', in itself doesn't makes sense here.– HinduDec 3, 2014 at 12:34
|
Show 2 more comments
2 Answers
The original Sanskrit version of the Bhagavadgita is not hard to find: just look on bhagavad-gita.org.
The Sanskrit version of the Mahabharata (the BORI critical edition, which is probably the most accurate version) can be found here:
- Book 1
- Book 2
- Book 3
- Book 4
- Book 5
- Book 6
- Book 7
- Book 8
- Book 9
- Book 10
- Book 11
- Book 12
- Book 13
- Book 14
- Book 15
- Book 16
- Book 17
- Book 18
Sacred-texts.com has the same BORI critical edition of the Mahabharata here but with a Roman transliteration. Actually, it also has the Devanagari, but there are several rendering issues, so I recommend you use the PDFs above for the Devanagari and sacred-texts.com for the transliteration if you need it.
As for the Ramayana: this website has the Baroda critical edition (again, the most accurate version of the Ramayana that I know of). Simply enter the book (kanda) and the chapter at the very bottom of the webpage, and it will give you the entire chapter. You can even change from the Devanagari version and change it to a Roman transliteration.
It's important to note that with the Ramayana and Mahabharata, there is no such thing as the "original" version. There are several recensions, but both have critical editions that are the most accurate versions, for which I have given links.
You can find lot of original scanned versions in the following site.
-
5Instead of just providing Internet Archive link, you should provide links specifically for the Scriptures mentioned in the question.– Pandya ♦Feb 15, 2017 at 17:00