Book Review: Jaya, Retelling of the Mahabharata
Published – 2011
Genre – Fairy Tale, Religious
Within infinite myths lie the Eternal Truth
who sees it all?
Varuna has but a thousand eyes
Indra, a hundred
And I, only two.
I am not such a religious person that I would deliberately read a religious book, but I chanced upon reading ‘Jaya – Retelling of Mahabharata’ when one of my friends gifted it to me. Fortunately the book is real gold and I found myself rejuvenated after finishing it. This is because I am one of those ‘modern’ people, who does not know about the origin/story of Mahabharata, and reading this book gave me some idea, if not much, about the hows and whys of the story. Mahabharata is an epic describing the issues of family feud where cousins fight among themselves for the division of the family property.
What I liked the most in this ambitious effort by “Devdutt Pattanaik” is when he intervenes and writes his own interpretation at the end of each chapter to analyse the situations and scenarios, providing different perspectives which are often overlooked by us. Apart from that there are many ‘Oh My God’ moments for me in this engrossing book viz.
- The descendants of Yadu were called the Yadavas. Krishna would be born in the Yadava clan. Like other Yadavas, he would never be king, but only a kingmaker.
- Puru became the patriarch of the illustrious kuru clan. From him descended the Kauravas and Pandavas.
- In Gambling, throw of dice indicates intelligence and luck. Krishna represents intelligence and Draupadi represents luck. The Pandavas enter the gambling hall with neither.
It focuses on many of the problems of present world viz. social outcast of people born in lower castes, Varna-system. Woven throughout the story are elements which strongly communicate the woes of an abandoned child, Karna. Karna, the melancholy child of Surya. Karna, the Generous. Karna, the most revered warrior of them all. For me the hero has always been Karna, one who could not refuse his mother’s begging to forgive her “own” children and not kill them but he shows a balanced thought process also because he cannot promise to forgive Arjuna, who defamed him the most in front of all.
The theme of asceticism as a practice to rid oneself of rage is a recurring theme in the Mahabharata. This epic gives great importance to the law of karma and teaches us how the root of all human tragedy is human folly since Duryodhan’s envy of the Pandava fortune is the root cause of the tragedy that is the Mahabharata. It is not that he has anything less but that his cousins have more that makes him suffer.
The beauty of the story of Mahabharata is the relatability to general masses be it any generation. The author has successfully reached the readers with clarity and simplicity of his retelling of the Mahabharata. The way he has traced the ancestry and origins of the Kauravas and Pandavas, relating stories about their ancestors, illustrating how every event is the result of Karma is an indicator of the immense hard work done by an author to put together a book. This is my first Devdutt Pattanaik’s masterpiece, and needless to say not the last one. It is a treat to know more of my culture through his imagination.
*Warning*- The story has a considerable number of characters so my advice to the readers would be to find a way to remember the relations of two people that the author is talking about in a scene just to understand the story better. If you are a geek like me you can go for Flowchart (helped me a lot).
Yours prateek Singhal .. 👋
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