# Mahabharat (1988)

> A sprawling televised retelling of the ancient Indian epic in which rival branches of the Kuru clan fight for the throne of Hastinapur, culminating in the Kurukshetra War.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/11752

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 94
- Episode runtime: 45 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, history
- Created by: B.R. Chopra, Ravi Chopra
- Network: DD National
- Cast: Nitish Bharadwaj, Mukesh Khanna, Puneet Issar, Arjun, Roopa Ganguly, Girja Shankar, Pankaj Dheer, Nazneen
- TMDB rating: 9.0/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158417/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: solemn, devotional, epic, melancholic, dramatic

## Synopsis

Mahabharat (1988-1990) is an Indian national-television mythological epic series created by B.R. Chopra and Ravi Chopra for DD National. Adapting the ancient Sanskrit epic, it follows the rivalry between the Kaurava and Pandava cousins over the throne of Hastinapur, the kingdom of the Kuru clan. Nitish Bharadwaj plays Krishna, the divine charioteer and guide, while Mukesh Khanna portrays the aging patriarch Bheeshma, bound by his vow of loyalty. Puneet Issar plays the scheming Duryodhana, whose ambition drives the conflict, and Roopa Ganguly appears as Draupadi, whose humiliation becomes a turning point. The engine of the series is a web of dice games, banishments, broken promises and shifting alliances, with each episode unfolding a chapter of the larger quarrel. Told across one season of 94 forty-five-minute episodes, it moves at a deliberate, ceremonial pace in the manner of classic Doordarshan storytelling. The tone is solemn and devotional, carrying moral weight about duty, honour and consequence, with battlefield sequences building toward the great war at Kurukshetra. Fans of Ramayan, Game of Thrones and other sweeping dynastic epics will find resonance in its scale and moral seriousness.

## Shows like Mahabharat

- [Mahabharat (2013)](https://ember.film/tv/54069)
- [Mirza Ghalib (1988)](https://ember.film/tv/1105119)
- [Prophet Joseph (2009)](https://ember.film/tv/61904)
- [Porus (2017)](https://ember.film/tv/67668)
- [Byomkesh Bakshi (1993)](https://ember.film/tv/55725)
- [Three Kingdoms (2010)](https://ember.film/tv/17220)
- [Shaktimaan (1997)](https://ember.film/tv/38512)
- [Devon Ke Dev...Mahadev (2011)](https://ember.film/tv/38677)
- [Ramayan (1987)](https://ember.film/tv/1882)
- [The Legend of the Condor Heroes (1983)](https://ember.film/tv/91)

---

Site overview: https://ember.film/llms.txt