The correct option is 1 and 2 only
Explanation
The Critical Edition of the Mahabharata was a monumental historiographical project initiated in 1919 by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), Pune. Under the leadership of V.S. Sukthankar, the project aimed to analyze diverse manuscripts to reconstruct the most authentic version of the epic.
- Statement 1 is Correct: The project began in 1919 and was completed in 1966. It took 47 years to collate, analyze, and publish the massive volume of verses.
- Statement 2 is Correct: The team collected Sanskrit manuscripts written in a variety of scripts (including Sharada, Nepali, Maithili, Bengali, Devanagari, Telugu, Grantha, and Malayalam) from diverse regions spanning from Kashmir in the north to Kerala in the south.
- Statement 3 is Incorrect: The Critical Edition does not exclude variations. While the main text consists of common verses, the enormous regional variations and interpolations were systematically documented in extensive footnotes and appendices. These variations actually constitute a significant portion of the published work.
- Statement 4 is Incorrect: The editorial methodology was based on identifying verses that were common to most versions across different regions. The editors did not select verses unique to southern or northern manuscripts for the main text; rather, unique or regionally specific verses were relegated to the appendices.
Key Takeaway: The Critical Edition of the Mahabharata was constructed by selecting verses common to manuscripts from all regions, while systematically recording regional variations in footnotes to present a unified yet comprehensive text.