Our name is inspired by an old legend…

…the story of how the largest recorded epic poem in the world was written.

The Mahabharata is composed of around 100,000 poetic verses, telling a story that spans generations, well known for its thorough exploration of the various moral grays that life entails. It continues to be referenced across the world today as an exploration of psychology, ethics, politics, story-telling and spirituality, among other areas of study.

As the story goes, its composer, the sage Vyasa, sought someone to scribe the epic poem while he composed and dictated the story.

He enlisted the deity Ganesha (a figure representing intelligence and scholarship) to be his scribe. Ganesha said he would do so on one condition: Vyasa would have to compose without any pause. The moment he hesitated or took a break, Ganesha would get up and leave the work unfinished.

Vyasa accepted, but with a counter-condition of his own: that Ganesha must fully understand and digest everything Vyasa said before writing it down.

It was a deal that struck a beautiful balance between absorption and articulation, between cognition and expression.

Whenever Vyasa needed to buy some time, he would compose something particularly complex for Ganesha, weaving in a poetic description of the constellations in the sky and other puzzles, so that he would have to pause to fully understand the meaning before writing.

At one point, as Ganesha was writing, his quill broke. Not wanting to stop, he broke off one of his own tusks to continue and complete the epic.

The Mahabharata sets out to capture the complete range of human experience–from spiritual inquiry, to political intrigue, to love, war, and the rise and fall of nations.

An essential theme that runs throughout the story, and is a constant preoccupation of its protagonists, is the search for clarity about the righteous course of action—the dharma—which is just and promotes harmony.

Each character brings their own motivations to a situation rife with political intrigue and high stakes, feeling completely justified in the correctness of their perspectives; and yet, the clash of these perspectives only produces escalating friction. As these entanglements become more fraught and complex, each character is forced to confront the elusiveness and subtlety of ethical wisdom, pushed to mature in their understanding of their dharma.

The themes explored in the Mahabharata are perennial in some sense, echoed in all great works of literature and the history of nations. We sense many of these dramatic undercurrents at play in American society today.

At Tusk & Quill, our ambition is similar to Vyasa’s.

We are inspired by the vastness of the vision, wanting to develop and articulate an understanding of the world we live in that is appropriately deep and complex, seeking to earnestly understand before asserting what we know, in pursuit of a more durable wisdom that can help lead to a more sustainable well-being for all.