09-09-2007, 04:20 PM
Last week i had the opportunity to meet a geeta press manager, a very knowledgeable volunteer. from him i learnt about a few curious facts.
Geeta press had printed in 1943, complete Mahabharata with verse by verse translation in hindi. one can imagine the effort taken to coherantly translate 100000 verses! with a team of volunteers the feat was achieved and the set with six huge volumes was printed. until recently the price of the set was a meagre 75 rupees, which has now been revised to Rs 1350. (the volunteers behind the mammoth effort remained unnamed - only name is gita press gorakhpur.)
then with demand for a hindi-only mahabharata they printed a 2-large volume set with over thousand pages in each volume which is presently sold at a price of Rs 220.
can you imagine how much is the demand? answer from the confident official was surprising and assuring. over 2,75,000 sets have been sold sofar, and 30 reprints published.
Geeta press had printed in 1943, complete Mahabharata with verse by verse translation in hindi. one can imagine the effort taken to coherantly translate 100000 verses! with a team of volunteers the feat was achieved and the set with six huge volumes was printed. until recently the price of the set was a meagre 75 rupees, which has now been revised to Rs 1350. (the volunteers behind the mammoth effort remained unnamed - only name is gita press gorakhpur.)
then with demand for a hindi-only mahabharata they printed a 2-large volume set with over thousand pages in each volume which is presently sold at a price of Rs 220.
can you imagine how much is the demand? answer from the confident official was surprising and assuring. over 2,75,000 sets have been sold sofar, and 30 reprints published.