Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of Mahabharata by Devdutt Pattanaik

In the process, the author infuses the book with his accurate understanding of how the modern Hindu ideals took shape. It throws light on the way our polity has, over centuries, enveloped this oldest story in its own perspectives and local legends. This, in turn, has resulted in the story providing a distinct perspective and inspiration to its readers irrespective of caste, creed or gender. Pattanaik makes this retelling even more sumptuous and soul satisfying by blending his illustrations into the book.

My takeaway from Jaya is not how grand the war in the Mahabharata was, how viciously it was fought, who the winners and losers were, and not even the highly advanced technology described thousands of years before modern man could fathom it. My learning is that the epic has been written solely as a grave pointer towards the futility of war, how ultimately all of us are tied to the sacred thread of cause and effect, and how even the mightiest of us (in this book, God himself) are ultimately judged on the sole standard of one’s deeds viewed through the prism of ‘dharma’.

Pattanaik has shunned popular opinions aside by including all versions of the epic in his book, even the ones which could be disputed. In this work, he truly makes his retelling of the Mahabharata one for the whole country–just what the actual epic intended to do.