Sons of Gods: The Mahabharata Retold

(Original year of posting: 2006.) I first read the Mahabharata in 1973, in India. The version I read was the big fat book by Kamala Subramaniam. I stayed up all night to finish it, and when it was over I decided then and there that this was the Book to end all Books. It was simply amazing. I've been a voracious reader all my life, but never had I been so floored by a story. I could say this in spite of the less than stellar writing. Subramaniam tends to write in short, jerky sentences, using an abundance of adjectives and adverbs. She spills the melodrama left right and centre, and is not afraid to overdo it in the emotional sector. In a way, the book seems written for children. But the story she tells in that book is simply magnificent. The Mahabharata is Hinduism's great epic story. It may be the oldest written story in the world, and certainly the longest. It tells the tale of kings and queens, gods and demons. It goes off on tangents lasting hundreds of pages, yet al...

Sons of Gods is now available in Print -- at last! It's available on Amazon and other retailers, in paperback. I've planned this for so many years -- I can't believe it's happened! And to celebrate, I have a new review, and a great one at that, by Shelley Schanfield  a Goodreads member, There are many retellings of the Mahabharata, India's classic epic. I have read several and would recommend Sons of Gods for anyone not already familiar with this ancient tale. Taken as a whole, the Mahabharata is unwieldy, to say the least. It is filled with digressions and stories within stories that resist linear narrative. Sharon Maas's version is admirably streamlined for readers who want to get a grounding in the basic story before exploring in more detail the rambling conglomeration of myths, legends, and history that make up this massive tale. The greatest strength of Sons of Gods lies in its introduction to the complex Kuru-Pandava lineage. Understanding the com...

I was in London last week and took the opportunity to visit Watkin's Spiritual Bookshop in Cecil Place, just off Charing Cross Road. I was looking for a copy of Kamala Subramaniam's Mahabharata . I felt I need to own this book; after all, it was my own inspiration, so many years ago, and to it I owe the planting of the Mahabharata seed in my mind, a seed that has sprouted and grown throughout the years. Back then, I had borrowed the book from an ashram library in India. I borrowed it again and again throughout that year, read it over and over till I knew it almost by heart. So, I ought to buy it. Own it. There's a second reason I needed to have that book. Though I know that I wrote Sons of Gods from my own memory, without a reference book open to help me, I was afraid that, just maybe, some of the words from my source might have buried themselves into my unconscious and emerged just as they were. To the onlooker, that might be interpreted as plagiarism. After all, I...

Vedas , Astronomy and Spirituality: is the Word mightier than Stone? "In the incredible age of Indian civilisation new evidence arises from the one intact source of Indian records so far overlooked: the fact that the word may be mightier than rock. Generations upon generations have passed down the poem before it was written down, the verses remembered with uncanny precision through intricate exercise." ………............................................................................................ "Oral tradition, the words themselves, may have carved a monument that withstands the ages better than rock, that is lost when it is written down; for it goes by the ear, by the rhythm of the heart. The sound silences the mind. It stills all thought: but as the book says, make one mistake, that’s when the snake strikes: when the ear hears. Oral tradition needed no written records. If it could be remembered faultlessly for a thousand years, why not for...

Destiny and Free Will : is Paradise open to dogs? (watch the video below for the answer!) “'You must learn to see with the same eye a mound of earth, a heap of gold, a cow, a sage, a dog, and the man who eats the dog. There’s another intelligence beyond the mind.' Krishna in Peter Brook’s Mahabharata. 'Dharma belies the Western criticism of Hindu thought: that it leaves precious little room for free will, that it binds man upon a wheel of fate, a wheel of reincarnation, rebirth; a wheel that goes round and round and round and round and round. 'Dharma offers the escape from the fate of reincarnation; it is the path detached from this world of illusion, to the quintessential truth which Hinduism seeks. “'From a western point of view it’s impossible to understand that fate, destiny and free will can coexist. Everything in the western mind says if there is fate there isn’t free will, if there’s free will there can’t be such a things as fate or destiny. The M...

Mythology and Religion "Indian mythology is like a mirror that shows their hearts' desire to all who look into it. So the Hindu in his shrine might greet you with : 'So you are a follower of this Jesus, brought his image with you! He is very nice too! Put him up there too in the shrine, there’s plenty of room!' "It is so because the original idea was never abandoned; it was merely enlarged, expanded upon for every imaginable taste. To this day though, in his heart, the Hindu really only believes in One ineffable God, creator of everything, to whom everything returns. Not the Christian father high up in heaven but inside us, everywhere, in all. Sometimes this One is known as Para Atman, whereas the individual soul is atman. Para means supreme: the Supreme Soul. "Our mind, our senses, separate us from that Soul. Our desires with which we shape the world around us distance us from the divine. So desire triggers the actions that shape reality but desir...

Film and Archaeology From the documentary: "Children in School, for example: if there is one child who is very strong or very fat they will say he is exactly like Bhima. And that is the kind of total liveability and contemporariness of the Mahabharata today." Mallika Sarabhai, as Draupadi in P eter Brook's miniseries, The Mahabharata . But a Bhima played by an actor from Africa? Director Peter Brook staged the Mahabharata with actors from around the world, making the Mahabharata accessible to people everywhere. "In all my conversations with Peter I have often asked him why he works with an international group and one of the things he has said is that if in a small group of mixed races and countries we can create something that is harmonious, then the world has a chance. The Mahabharata cuts across everything. It cuts across time, race, colour. It’s the same issues that have continue to face human beings over millennia." -- Mallika Sarabhai Fr...