  The PYTHIA program can be used to generate high-energy-physics `events', i.e.
sets of outgoing particles produced in the interactions between two incoming
particles. The objective is to provide as accurate as possible a representation
of event properties in a wide range of reactions, with emphasis on those where
strong interactions play a role, directly or indirectly, and therefore
multihadronic final states are produced. The physics is then not understood
well enough to give an exact description; instead the program has to be based
on a combination of analytical results and various QCD-based models. This
physics input is summarized here, for areas such as hard subprocesses, initial-
and final-state parton showers, beam remnants and underlying events,
fragmentation and decays, and much more. Furthermore, extensive information is
provided on all program elements: subroutines and functions, switches and
parameters, and particle and process data. This should allow the user to tailor
the generation task to the topics of interest.
  The information in this edition of the manual refers to PYTHIA version 6.200,
of 31 August 2001.
  The official reference to the latest published version is T. Sj\"ostrand, P.
Ed\'en, C. Friberg, L. L\"onnblad, G. Miu, S. Mrenna and E. Norrbin, Computer
Physics Commun. 135 (2001) 238.
