Author: Devdutt Pattanaik
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 372
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780143104254
Description
High above the sky stands Swarga, paradise, abode of the gods. Still above is Vaikuntha, heaven, abode of God.
The doorkeepers of Vaikuntha are the twins, Jaya and Vijaya, both whose names mean ‘victory’. One keeps you in Swarga; the other raises you into Vaikuntha. In Vaikuntha there is bliss forever, in Swarga there is pleasure for only as long as you deserve.
What is the difference between Jaya and Vijaya? Solve this puzzle and you will solve the mystery of the Mahabharata.
In this enthralling retelling of India’s greatest epic, the Mahabharata, originally known as Jaya, Devdutt Pattanaik seamlessly weaves into a single narrative plots from the Sanskrit classic as well as its many folk and regional variants, including the Pandavani of Chattisgarh, Gondhal of Maharashtra, Terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu, and Yakshagana of Karnataka.
Richly illustrated with over 250 line drawings by the author, the 108 chapters abound with little-known details such as the names of the hundred Kauravas, the worship of Draupadi as a goddess in Tamil Nadu, the stories of Astika, Madhavi, Jaimini, Aravan and Barbareek, the Mahabharata version of the Shakuntalam and the Ramayana, and the dating of the war based on astronomical data.
With clarity and simplicity, the tales in this elegant volume reveal the eternal relevance of the Mahabharata, the complex and disturbing meditation on the human condition that has shaped Indian thought for over 3000 years.
FROM JACKET COVER:
Back of the Book
The Mahabharata is an ancient Hindu epic where:
a son renounces sex so that his old father can remarry
a daughter is a prize in an archery contest
a teacher demands half a kingdom as his tuition fee
a student is turned away because of his caste
a mother asks her sons to share a wife
a father curses his son-in-low to be old and impotent
a husband lets another man make his wife pregnant
a wife blindfolds herself to share her husband’s blindness
a forest is destroyed for a new city
a family is divided over inheritance
a king gambles away his kingdom
a queen is forced to serve as a maid
a man is stripped of his manhood for a year
a woman is publicly disrobed
a war is fought where all rules are broken
a shift in sexuality secures victory
the vanquished go to paradise
the victors lose their children
the earth is bathed in blood
God is cursed
until wisdom prevails
Contents
Author’s Note: What Ganesha Wrote
Structure of Vyasa’s Epic
Prologue: The Start of the Snake Sacrifice
1. Ancestors
2. Parents
3. Birth
4. Education
5. Castaway
6. Marriage
7. Friendship
8. Division
9. Coronation
10. Gambling
11. Exile
12. Hiding
13. Gathering
14. Perspective
15. War
16. Aftermath
17. Reconstruction
18. Renunciation
Epilogue: The End of the Snake Sacrifice
The Idea Called Dharma
Acknowledgements
Bibliography