The Palace of Illusion

A new Interpretation on one of the most sacred Indian epic- Mahabharath from the point of view of Yajnaseni, a fire born princess named Panchali is definitely a good read.

This book describes the each phase in Mahabharath from Draupadis perspective. It beautifully phrases her strange birth, lonely childhood, tricky marriage and all her acts and her decisions at every stage. 

With her strange unexpected birth, she was always treated as a doom to her clan yet as a princess. She was never allowed to do the stuff that her brother was allowed to do. She was never given the opportunity to learn vedas which her brother did.

To protect the respect of her father and also the life of her brother, she insulted a King named Karna which led to her marriage with a saint who later turned out to be Arjuna. Though she was happy to marry Arjuna, her happiness about the marriage did not last really long.  Her expectation to live in the palace has faded when she was taken to a small hut where the four brothers of Arjuna and their mother lived. Her tiredness made her to get into the sleep and when she woke up, she was told that she would be the wife of 5 husbands which includes Arjuna and his brothers. Her heart was devastated as she always wanted Arjuna to be her husband all this while. But, later she accepted and did all things in a righteous way.

In Indian mythology, specially in the era when Mahabharath took place, a women is considered as a  whore if she had more than 4 husbands. That is the reason, during the marriage ceremony, through the chantings, a women is first married to fire, water, air and then to her husband so that she would never marry any other person in that life time.

Just because she laughed at Duryodana when he fell into the water, she was disrespected in the most brutal way in front of all her husbands and the entire village later. 

She was considered as a strong headed women. She was considered as a whore. She was considered as a tough one. How else can a women turn out to be after taking all things happened to her ? 

She wanted to teach Kauravas a lesson. It was just not Draupadis decision. It was Pandavas decision too. But she was always good from heart and she always respected dharma. Her heart cried when the war took place. She served her husbands until the end. Even during their journey to the death, she followed their path. 

Some say that she was sent to hell as she was not truthful to her husband as she loved Arjuna the most. Some say that she was the female version of Lord Krishna and all this happened as a part of Krishna leela, to let people know about the difference between right and wrong, karma and bhakti, dharma and adharma.

Whatever the reason is, if this was a real thing happened, I can find the reason for her every act and every decision. Her strength makes her as a Goddess which she already is. 

There is always a reason for every bad thing happened. All I want to say is nobody can never be completely blamed for any act. Everything that was explained here is from Draupadis view and all the other characters would surely have a reason for their act from their point of view.

Nobody can ever be blamed completely. It can either be Kauravas or Pandavas or Draupadi or you or me.

I dedicate this beautiful painting to the beautiful Goddess Draupadi.