Book Review: Mahabharata Unravelled

The outlines of the Mahabharta and the life trajectories of the major characters are well known to every Indian, whether or not they have read the epic. We've been exposed to it since our childhoods and B.R.Chopra's fantastic TV series influenced the entire nation - cities and towns across the nations would virtually go into what we now call lockdown when the series aired on Sunday mornings on Doordarshan, the national  (and only!) broadcaster. Many of us read the many Amar Chitra Katha comic books  which embedded the visual characterization of many of the characters in our mind.

We all know of the good cousins - the Pandavas, their ongoing struggle from birth with their 100 Kaurava cousins who were jealous of them. We feel sorrow for the accident of birth of Karna which led him to the side of the Kauravas, the might of Bhima, the archery of Arjuna, the self-respect of Draupadi, the Empress of India and the divine presence of Krishna, the incarnation of Lord Vishnu, throughout the epic.

Reading the Mahabharata itself though presented its own challenges as it is the largest epic in the world. There's of course C.Rajagopalachari's wonderful (and extremely) abridged version of the Mahabharata and now recently Dr.Bibek Debroy's 10 volume literal translation of the entire epic - there's nothing in between for the reader who needed the details of specific characters and incidents. This is exactly where Ami Ganatra's book Mahabharata Unravelled - Lesser-known Facets of a Well-known History fits in.

The author addresses the many misplaced myths that have become part of the epic due to it retelling in popular culture which differ from the authoritative text.  She also re-examines some commonly accepted understandings about the epic - for example was Karna really a good friend of Duryodhana or was he just using Duryodhana to fulfil his own personal ambitions? The chapters on Draupadi and Kunti bring out the characteristics of a warrior queen and how they behaved across varying situations of governing a larger empire or living in a hermitage in the jungle.

The highlight of the book is that almost every section has a reference that provides the section in the original text that the interested reader could refer to for more details. Given the size of the Mahabharata, the wealth of narratives, stories, advice and the characters who are spread across this ocean, we hope the author can come out with a second volume that brings out highlights more of these.

I am grateful to Indic Academy for providing me an opportunity to read and review this wonderful book which I will be dipping into again and again.