"Mahabharata" is the name of a book in the Sanskrit language telling in very simple verse form the story of a family quarrel ending in a fierce battle. To the Indians in general, this is not an imaginary made up story, but represents a real event which took place about 1000BC. In the course of this narration, stories of the ancestors of the heroes who fought the battle are given. The heroes were princes who ruled a city called Hastinapur, situated somewhere near modern Delhi. The most illustrious amongst these ancestors was Bharata. From the name Bharata is derived the word Bharata which might mean any descendent of Baharata or any other aspect of Bharat, as for example a poem. "Maha" means great. The word Mahabharata lets us recognise stages in the making of this poem. Perhaps there was a simpler and less extensive story called Bharata and then by century long accretions, it became a Maha (the great) Bharata (book about the descendents of Bharata)
In the story as it is preserved, the chief narrators are different bards called "Sutas". A class of people called Sutas, representing the illegitimate progeny of the Kshatriyas (the warrior caste), performed various functions at the courts. They were counsellors and friends of kings, charioteers and also bards. Some of them moved from place to place, where ever they knew people were likely to assemble and told their stories which were mainly exploits of love and adventure of ancient and ruling kings and princes. A book in many respects like the Mahabharata was the Ramayana a narrative sung from place to place. Out of these grew a later type of literature called the "Puranas" (Purana = ancient = the story of the past). These besides the stories of barious Kshatriya dynasties, contianed cosmologies, cosmogonies and a lot of didactic matter. The narrators of the Puranas were also Sutas. The Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Puranas have been given a special name by a Dr. S.V Ketkar, who called it the Sauta literature, that is literature belonging to the Sutas, preserved and sung by the sutas and perhaps largely composed by them.
This literature embodied the secular and political traditions of Sanskrit literature as against another branch which is called Mantra. Mantra in Sanskrit means a hymn or magical formula. Mantra literature embodied hymns to gods, magical verses (as in the Rigveda and Atharvaveda), descriptions of rituals and the uses of hymns in ritual in addition to minute details of various sacrifices(as in the Yajurveda). There was also philosophical and esoteric discourse (as in the Upanishads and Aranyakas)
The gist of the rest in Avy's words : The Mahabharata later went from the Sutas into the hands of the Brahmans (priestly caste), who became jealous custodians of the literature and added to the originals as they pleased. But the additions (in Mahabharata) are so crude and out of context to the original story they can be detected easily. The mode of narration of the Mahabharata became the standard for some kinds of story literature in Sanskrit. This mode consists of stories within stories and the thread of the main story is taken up after many such narrations (rather like AWAD). Sometimes the main story seems almost forgotten or lost but then is taken up again. Readers of Arabian nights know this form which was apparently borrowed from the Mahabharata model.
