Who was the writer of Mahabharata?

Ancient Indian epics and classical works are each traditionally attributed to a specific author, and identifying the right one means knowing the corpus each figure is actually associated with -- an epic, a devotional retelling, or a political treatise.

The Mahabharata, one of the two great Sanskrit itihasa (epics) of ancient India, is traditionally credited to the sage Krishna Dwaipayana, known as Ved Vyasa. Tradition also credits him with compiling the four Vedas and the eighteen Puranas, which is the origin of the epithet "Ved Vyasa" (compiler of the Vedas).

• Kalidas was a classical Sanskrit poet-dramatist of the Gupta era, known for works such as Abhijnanashakuntalam, Meghaduta, and Raghuvamsha.

• Tulsidas was a 16th-century Bhakti-era poet whose major work, the Ramcharitmanas, is a devotional retelling of the Ramayana in Awadhi.

• Kautilya, also known as Chanakya, authored the Arthashastra, a treatise on statecraft, economics, and military strategy.

Hence, among the options offered, only Vedavyas fits as the traditional author of the Mahabharata.