Under the leadership of which Sanskritist/Epigraphist was the project of preparing the first critical edition of the epic Mahabharata started in 1919?

The project to prepare the first critical edition of the Mahabharata was initiated in 1919 at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) in Pune. The project was led by the renowned Indian Sanskritist and epigraphist V. S. Sukthankar, who served as the General Editor.

The team meticulously compared thousands of manuscripts written in various scripts (such as Devanagari, Sharada, Malayalam, etc.) from across the subcontinent to identify common verses and reconstruct the most authentic version of the epic. This monumental task involved a team of scholars and took 47 years to complete, concluding in 1966. While R. G. Bhandarkar was a legendary scholar after whom the institute was named, it was Sukthankar who provided the methodological leadership. Bhau Daji and Rajendralal Mitra were prominent 19th-century scholars who were not involved in this 20th-century initiative.