'Now for several reasons, the Mahabharata's use of the frame story is of special significance for understanding its 'doctrine of time' and Hindu chronicities more generally. First, the epic is one of the first texts (its dating relative to the Ramayana remains uncertain) to explore framing and its narrative possibilities in relation to themes of temporality. Second, the frame story is probably the leading device through which the text supports its vast and complex meditation on time. Third, the epic 'takes time' in order to do interesting things with it and say provocative things about it, such as those mentioned earlier, which, we can now see, are not only a curtain lifted over the main story or parameters of a kalavada but also rhythms that can enframe each other, be collapsed to simultaneity, or make joints between the temporal experiences that the text itself offers.'...Fourth, it forms part of a cultural 'reading' experience that relocates its temporalities into images that people live with.' - Randy Kloetzli and Alf Hiltebeitel
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