Book Review: Duryodhana

Have you read the Mahabharata? Which version of the Mahabharata did you read? Therein lies the genesis of this book Duryodhana by V Raghunathan. Who do you think is the hero of the tale? Is it Arjuna? Is it Krishna? Is it the five Pandavas and Draupadi? Was it Karna? Could it be Duryodhana? After all if history is written by the victors, how would you know that the version you have grown up knowing is the correct version?Mahabharata is one of the most complex stories ever written. Just to give you an idea of the scale, it is seven times the length of the Greek epics Illiad and its sequel Odyssey combined. The Mahabharata is full of major and minor characters. Each character comes with its own backstory. Even heaven has its variants. There is Vaikuntha and there is Swarga. Which one is superior? Mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik says that the Mahabharata was originally called Jaya“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.”If you want to read the story narrated from the point of view of Draupadi then I recommend that you read The Palace of Illusions. Stories change depending on who the narrator is.Gurcharan Das has written The Difficulty of Being Good – a version of Mahabharata, that wrestles with the questions of right and wrong that each character grapples with.“When a hero does something wrong in a Greek epic, he gets on with it; when a hero falters in the Mahabharata, the action stops and everyone weighs in with a different and contradictory take on dharma. The epic’s characters are flawed; they stumble. But their incoherent experiences throw light on our day to day emotions of envy, revenge, remorse, status anxiety, compassion, courage, duty and other moral qualities”Raghunathan’s protagonist is Duryodhana. In the opening chapters the author builds a compelling case why the version of the epic you have known may be flawed because history is always written by victors. The grandfather of the Kaurava clan Sage Vyasa is said to have dictated the verses to Lord Ganesha who mean the text to be history or ithaas (In Sanskrit, Itihaas means ‘this is what happened’). Since it is hard to verify the facts, the epic is more mythological and historical.The best chapters of Duryodhana are the early ones. The case is compellingly created. I really started to buy into the argument that maybe Duryodhana was not the villain I had always known. Every story has a story within a story and each character is not what you thought him or her to be. It is well researched. Fact and fiction blend in flawlessly. The trivia sprinkled in every now and then adds to the narrative. If you can’t name the hundred (or is it 101?) Kauravas? Read the book to know all those names. Talking of names, Duryodhana was named Suyodhana and it is the flawed version of the epic where his name itself has been changed.The book ends just before the eighteen day battle of the Mahabharata. That was a damp squib. The narrative sags in the last few chapters. I did not find them to be as grippingly narrated. That was a bit of a let down. Maybe the author should add the story of the eighteen day battle and complete the story. The book can be summed up perfectly as, “Well begun, but half done.”----------Join me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduriRead my review of Business Sutra by Devdutt Pattanaik <click here>