The Poem and Its Scribe

When Vyāsa had made the great poem of the Bhārata in his mind, Brahmā, the creator, came to him, and Vyāsa bowed and told him: I have made a poem that holds the mystery of the Veda, the Upaniṣads, the Veda's teachings on the Self, and the sciences that serve the Veda as its limbs, the Purāṇas and the histories, the past and the present and the future, decay and fear and disease, being and not being, the ways of life and the duties of all the classes, the sun and moon and planets and stars and the four ages, the holy places, the arts of war, the peoples and their languages, and the spirit that pervades all. But no one on earth can be found to write it down.

Brahmā said, You have called it a poem, and a poem it will be. No poet will equal it. Think of Gaṇeśa, and let him write it. And Brahmā went away. Vyāsa thought of Gaṇeśa, the remover of obstacles, and Gaṇeśa came at once, and Vyāsa asked him, Leader of the gaṇas, be the writer of the Bhārata I have made in my mind and am about to recite. Gaṇeśa said, I will write it, if my pen does not stop for a moment. Vyāsa said, Then do not write anything you do not understand. Gaṇeśa said Om, and began to write, and Vyāsa, for his own delight, knit some verses so tightly knotted in meaning that even Gaṇeśa, who knows all things, had to stop a moment to think, and while he thought, Vyāsa composed many more.