This Is An Unconventional Interpretation Of The Mahabharata With Yudhisthir As The Hero. It Seeks To Emphasie That The Relevance Of This Epic Extends Beyond Limitations Of Time, And That The Underlying Philosophy Of The Classic Can Be Explored, Again And Again, To Find New Truths Emerging Each Time.

Though the Kuru family survived on Vyasadeva’s seeds, he never belonged to the house. Moreover, being an ascetic, he was even exempted from obligations of the complicated dynamics of human relationships. This armed him with a ruthless dispassion and he could go on telling his stories with stoical detachment, free from any bias and uncontaminated by quintessential human dilemmas. But had any of his characters given his own account of the story, would not that have lent a different dimension to the events seducing ordinary mortals like us to identify, if not compare, our private crises with those of our much celebrated heroes? The Unfallen Pandava is an imaginary autobiography of Yudhishthira, attempting to follow the well-known story of the Mahabharata through his eyes. In the process of narrating the story, he examines his extremely complicated marriage and relationship with brothers turned co-husbands, tries to understand the mysterious personality of his mother in a slightly mother-fixated way, conducts manic and depressive evaluation of his own self and reveals his secret darkness and philosophical confusions with an innate urge to submit to a supreme soul. His own story lacks the material of an epic, rather it becomes like confession of a partisan who, prevailing over other more swashbuckling characters, finally discovers his latent greatness and establishes himself as the symbolic protagonist.

In this award-winning novel, Tharoor has masterfully recast the two-thousand-year-old epic, The Mahabharata, with fictional but highly recognizable events and characters from twentieth-century Indian politics. Nothing is sacred in this deliciously irreverent, witty, and deeply intelligent retelling of modern Indian history and the ancient Indian epic The Mahabharata. Alternately outrageous and instructive, hilarious and moving, it is a dazzling tapestry of prose and verse that satirically, but also poignantly, chronicles the struggle for Indian freedom and independence.

In Raja Yudhisthira, Kevin McGrath brings his comprehensive literary, ethnographic, and analytical knowledge of the epic Mahabharata to bear on the representation of kingship in the poem. He shows how the preliterate Great Bharata song depicts both archaic and classical models of kingly and premonetary polity and how the king becomes a ruler who is viewed as ritually divine. Based on his precise and empirical close reading of the text, McGrath then addresses the idea of heroic religion in both antiquity and today; for bronze-age heroes still receive great devotional worship in modern India and communities continue to clash at the sites that have been—for millennia—associated with these epic figures; in fact, the word hero is in fact more of a religious than a martial term. One of the most important contributions of Raja Yudhisthira, and a subtext in McGrath's analysis of Yudhisthira's kingship, is the revelation that neither of the contesting moieties of the royal Hastinapura clan triumphs in the end, for it is the Yadava band of Krsna who achieve real victory. That is, it is the matriline and not the patriline that secures ultimate success: it is the kinship group of Krsna—the heroic figure who was to become the dominant Vaisnava icon of classical India—who benefits most from the terrible Bharata war.

Yudhishtar and Draupadi is a long poem in rhymed sonnets based on one of the most important episodes in the Mahabharata. In it, Pavan Varma gives us a new and challenging interpretation of the encounter between the Pandavas and the Yaksha of the Poisoned Pool. During their years of exile, the Pandavas happen upon a pool in the Dvaitvana forest. They thirst for the water, but its guardian will not allow them to drink until they have answered his questions. Four of the brothers die at the hands of the Yaksha after failing to solve the riddles, and then it is Yudhishtarýs turn. The narrative of Yudhishtar and Draupadi begins with the eldest Pandava facing the Yaksha. Determined to bring his brothers back to life, and protect the beautiful Draupadi, the eldest Pandava draws upon his fabled diplomacy and wisdom to answer every one of the Yakshaýs questions faultlessly. As he does so, the reader is given rare and beautifully couched insights into some of the most fundamental questions of life, love, death and benediction. Pavan Varma also uses the episode to look into the uneasy relationship between Yushishtar, and the alluring Draupadi. His austerity and straightforwardness come in the way of his passion for Draupadi, who loves Arjun above everyone else. The complex interplay between the two gives the poet the opportunity to meditate on key apsects of men and women in love.

Why should we be good? How should we be good? And how might we more deeply understand the moral and ethical failings--splashed across today's headlines--that have not only destroyed individual lives but caused widespread calamity as well, bringing communities, nations, and indeed the global economy to the brink of collapse? In The Difficulty of Being Good, Gurcharan Das seeks answers to these questions in an unlikely source: the 2,000 year-old Sanskrit epic, Mahabharata. A sprawling, witty, ironic, and delightful poem, the Mahabharata is obsessed with the elusive notion of dharma--in essence, doing the right thing. When a hero does something wrong in a Greek epic, he wastes little time on self-reflection; when a hero falters in the Mahabharata, the action stops and everyone weighs in with a different and often contradictory take on dharma. Each major character in the epic embodies a significant moral failing or virtue, and their struggles mirror with uncanny precision our own familiar emotions of anxiety, courage, despair, remorse, envy, compassion, vengefulness, and duty. Das explores the Mahabharata from many perspectives and compares the successes and failures of the poem's characters to those of contemporary individuals, many of them highly visible players in the world of economics, business, and politics. In every case, he finds striking parallels that carry lessons for everyone faced with ethical and moral dilemmas in today's complex world. Written with the flair and seemingly effortless erudition that have made Gurcharan Das a bestselling author around the world--and enlivened by Das's forthright discussion of his own personal search for a more meaningful life--The Difficulty of Being Good shines the light of an ancient poem on the most challenging moral ambiguities of modern life.

Warning: Includes intense sexual situations. This is Not a children's book. Novella. Genre: Erotic Fiction. Draupadi is taking the first step in building a new life for herself as the wife of five warrior brothers. Still reeling from the predicament a tragic misunderstanding has landed her in, Draupadi is wary of her conjugal relations with all five men...until Yudhishthir offers her the one thing she is dreading most - a chance to stoke the silent passion burning between them to raging flames. Thrown into a marriage by chance, Yudhishthir is forced to risk his honor and choose with his heart, or lose the affections of Draupadi to his brothers. Her kisses are soul-stirring, leaving him lusting for more. The only thing he knows for sure is that he can no longer resist her.

I knew there was nothing poetic about death. I knew not that the most horrific battles are fought off the battlefield. Arjun: The idealist in a non-ideal world; the warrior whose deadliest opponent was his conscience. History forgot his voice, but misquoted his silence. My self-esteem originates from me and ends in me. Why does your honor depend on me? Find your own. Draupadi: The untamed tigress, the fragrant flame, the unbridled spirit. Power does not justify sin. Power is not virtue. Virtue is that which lasts in spite of power. Krishn: The enigma whose unique ideology churned the battlefield into a quest for Truth. The Missile …The Trajectory … The Vision. The trio that makes for the core of The Mahabharata (Indian Epic). This is their saga. Insightful, visceral and candid. Find ‘other’ famous Arjuns; compare Arjun vis-a-vis Achilles and Alexander; Explore Myths of Mahabharata. All this and much more in ‘Arjun: Without A Doubt’. First published in 2015 by Leadstart Publishing Pvt. Ltd. Genre: Epic/ Indian Mythology/ History/ Fiction Website: http://sweetyshinde.wordpress.com

exhorting his audience to shed their delusions, pretensions and empty

"Pooja Kapoor, a betrayed wife and mother, is forced to question her beliefs and marriage when she discovers that her husband, Rahul, has fallen in love with Atif, a young Muslim man. Bereft and desperate for divine intervention, she is compelled to confront painful truths about the past, the duality in God and husband, and the secrets that threaten to destroy everything in their wake."--P. [2] of cover.