In popular retellings, the Mahabharata ends tragically with vast bloodshed on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, where the Kauravas are defeated by the Pandavas. Following this episode, there is the Ashwamedha Parva. It describes how Yudhishthira becomes king and lets loose his royal horse across the land, followed by armies led by Arjun, who establishes Pandava rule in all the lands of Bharatvarsha or India. This is not just a conquest by a victorious king, but also an attempt to reconcile with former enemies.

In medieval times, when the Sanskrit epic was being translated into regional languages, kings, especially from Karnataka, Assam, Manipur and Bengal, preferred stories from the Ashwamedha Parva. Vyasa's student, Jaimini, we are told, wrote the earliest retelling of this Parva in Sanskrit, but his version is rather different from Vyasa's retelling.