MAHABHARATA 



3597 



MAHDI 



Carpathian Mountains. These wild pagan peo- 

 ple spread terror throughout Europe, destroyed 

 the state of Moravia (which see) and harassed 

 Germany and Italy until they were eventually 

 forced back into the country now known as 

 Hungary. There, in spite of many lapses into 

 barbarity and internal strife, they adopted 

 Christianity and practically all the important 

 institutions of civilization. They are imperious 

 and proud and impatient of restraint. In dress 

 they love the most vivid colors and striking 

 combinations. They number over 8,000,000. 



The Magyars were for years a dependent 

 people of the old Austrian Empire, a condition 

 which they bitterly resented. Finally their de- 

 mand for self-government became too strong 

 to be disregarded, and in 1867 Hungary was 

 made a constitutional kingdom in the dual 

 Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (see AUSTRIA- 

 HUNGARY, subhead History}. Though relations 

 between Austria and Hungary have not been 

 kept on a very friendly basis, the Magyars gave 

 their loyal support to the central empires in 

 the War of the Nations. 



MAHABHARATA, ma hah bah ' ra ta, mean- 

 ing literally "the great history of the descend- 

 ants of Bharata," is the name of one of the two 

 great epic poems of ancient India, the other 

 being the Ramdyana (which see). The com- 

 plete work consists of 110,000 couplets, its con- 

 tents being nearly eight times the bulk of the 

 Iliad and Odyssey combined. It is divided into 

 eighteen books and primarily narrates the his- 

 tory of the war between the Kauravas and the 

 Pandavas for the possession of the ancient 

 kingdom of Bharata. . The matter incidentally 

 linked with the main thread of the story relates 

 to the mythological history as well as the laws, 

 religion, morals and philosophy of India. 

 Through the incidental matter the Mahabha- 

 rata became a veritable encyclopedia of India. 

 The authorship of the epic is attributed to 

 Vyasa "the stranger," but this simply means 

 that the contents were welded together with a 

 certain order and sequence so as to form one 

 work. That this p,oem was not the work of one 

 man but a production of successive ages is evi- 

 denced by the diversity of material and the 

 differences in style. 



MAHAN, mahahn', ALFRED THAYER (1840- 

 1914), an American naval officer and author, 

 considered one of the greatest authorities in the 

 world on the sea-power of the nations, was born 

 in West Point, N. Y. His father was a pro- 

 fessor in the United States Military Academy, 

 and an author of notable books on military 



engineering. The son Alfred was educated in 

 the Naval Academy, graduating in 1859, and 

 entering the navy as a midshipman. 



In 1861 he was promoted to be lieutenant, 

 and during the War of Secession served in the 

 South Atlantic and Gulf squadrons. Mahan 

 was on duty at the Naval Academy during the 

 years of 1862-1863, and attained the rank of 

 lieutenant-commander in 1865, receiving his 

 commission as commander in 1872, and that of 

 captain in 1885. He was twice elected to the 

 presidency of the Naval War College at New- 

 port (in 1886 and in 1892). In 1896 he asked 

 permission to retire from active service ; but on 

 the outbreak of the Spanish-American War ac- 

 cepted office on the naval board, and later was 

 one of the delegates of the United States in the 

 Peace Conference at The Hague. 



In 1894 Mahan received from Oxford the 

 degree of D. C. L., and from Cambridge that 

 of LL. D. He also was honored with the latter 

 degree by Harvard, Yalei, McGill University 

 (Montreal), and by Columbia University (New 

 York). He is the author of many valuable 

 books, his greatest, The Influence of Sea Power 

 on History, 1660-1783, being considered one of 

 the world's most important contributions to 

 naval literature, and reputed to have been the 

 inspiration of Emperor William of Germany in 

 the construction of that country's formidable 

 navy. His Life of Nelson is held by many to 

 be the best ever published. Other works are 

 Life of Farragut, Lessons of the War with 

 Spain. Armaments and Arbitration, War in 

 South Africa and Problems of Asia. 



MAHANOY, mahhanoi', CITY, PA., is a 

 borough in Schuylkill County, in the anthracite 

 coal fields of the east-central part of the state. 

 It is on Mahanoy Creek and on the Philadel- 

 phia & Reading and the Lehigh Valley rail- 

 roads, fifty-five miles northeast of Harrisburg 

 and fifty-one miles northwest of Reading. The 

 population is fifty per cent American and fifty 

 per cent foreign, including English and Welsh, 

 Irish, Polish and Austrians. The population in 

 1910 was 15,936; in 1916 it was 17,463 (Federal 

 estimate) . 



Coal mining and shipping are the important 

 industries. Ten coal mines in the vicinity em- 

 ploy 8,000 men. There are also potteries, shirt 

 factories and lumber, flour and hosiery mills. 



The city was named in honor of an Indian 

 tribe; it was settled in 1859 and chartered as 

 a borough in 1863. 



MAHDI, mah'de, an Arabian word meaning 

 the guided one, is in the Mohammedan religion 



