ABSTRACT
Epics are grand meta-narratives that do not necessarily limit themselves to the narration of a story of splendour and greatness but also essentially explores the dialectics of the society that the narrative is based upon. In the epics Mahabharata and Iliad, the warlike situation was articulated and crafted with an astute and shrewd sense of statesmanship rather than an organic situation germane to the situation and it being absolutely unavoidable. In the Mahabharata, Yudhisthira, on being invited to the game of dice, could easily understand and overtly unravel the ploy to dethrone him and could have, accordingly, declined the challenge from a rational and logical point of view. The paper studies the escalation of the situation to war in the epics Mahabharata and Iliad and how heroism plays out in dealing with the situation by the protagonist. Epics stand the scrutiny of time and space, and subsequently, serve as an epitome of values and wisdom relevant to the contemporary situation.
