Mahabharat is a successful Indian television series based on the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata. The 94-episode series originally ran from 2 October 1988 to 24 June 1990.[1] It was produced by B. R. Chopra and directed by his son, Ravi Chopra.
Cast
The opening credits are shown over a backdrop of illustrations from ISKCON's edition of the Bhagavad-Gita, Bhagavad-Gita As It Is. The Society and its founder, Swami Prabhupada, are credited for these illustrations. The sung verses at the end of the credit sequence are verses 7 and 8 of chapter 4 of the Gita: "Whenever and wherever a decline of righteousness and a predominance of unrighteousness prevails, at that time I (Krishna) manifest myself personally, O descendant of Bharata; for the protection of the devotees and the annihilation of the miscreants and to fully establish righteousness, I appear millenium after millenium."
The voice of Time (Samay in Hindi, voiced by Harish Bhimani) narrates the series. At or near the beginning of each episode, Time reviews relevant events that have gone before and sets the stage of the action happening in the present episode. During these sequences, a backdrop of stars and planets is shown overlaid with a transparent image of a statue's head and/or a slowly turning wheel. Time often speaks of perceiving or revealing patterns in the epic that only it can know from its cosmic perspective. Time also occasionally provides narration while human-scale action is shown.
Each episode ends with a sung verse either summarizing the physical or emotional state of the episode's main characters, or a moral lesson that can be drawn from the action.
Each episode was approximately 45 minutes long. It followed the highly successful Ramayan broadcast in 1987–1988
According to production team member Kishore Malhotra, the total cost of producing the series was Rs. 90,000,000.
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