Earlier of the two great Sanskrit epics of India, the Mahabharata (other being the Ramayana) is written earlier than the other. Considered to be the longest single poem in the world literature, the epic is traditionally ascribed to the sage Vyasa, though it incorporated many episodes in the later centuries. As the poem stands today, it contains about 90, 000 stanzas, most of them of thirty two syllables.The central story of the Mahabharata concerns a great civil war fought among cousins and brothers for the succession of the throne of the Kuru Kingdom, in the region of the modern delhi, then known as Kurukshetra.