Jaya - An illustrated retelling of the Mahabharat : Devdutt Pattanaik

What stood out for me when I read this book, was how every character including Krishna is shown to have not been spared the hand of destiny. It shows the duplicity of the human nature, the double standards, the follies and fates governed mostly as a result of past karma. It analyses each character at arms length, giving roots and reasons to their actions. Nobody is shown as perfect. Everybody is dealt the hand of fate due to their past actions or their inability to adhere to dharma. 

The ignorant me, would think that most of us are aware only of the outlines of the Mahabharat. We would all be inclined to believe that the Pandavas were the all ideal and Kauravas at fault. But the book dissects them for the layers they have. How Pandavas would easily fall prey to conceit and adharma till the very end even though they suffered the death of their brothers and sons. It lays emphasis on the fact that people who might appear to be your enemies, might not be so and their actions not necessarily bad. Even your altruistic actions might not be best for the flow of life, even though done with best of intentions. 

The discourse of the Gita, is something one should read again and again to grasp the essence of how life needs to be led. It is lucid and stays with you. It speaks of human attachment to the flesh of our body and the fear of death as a manifestation of it, making way for ego (Ahankar). The aim of human life is to make the soul grow materially, intellectually and emotionally for it is the only thing immortal.  Only humans that can differentiate between the soul and the body, and therefore it should make us better than animals who are governed only by the animal spirit of survival. It propounds the importance of empathy as a necessity to dharma. It talks of measuring scales of right conduct or behaviour and their being no set standard for the same because of us being mere puppets at the hand of destiny. And therefore one should not take pride in our good deeds because it is all a turn of fate and nothing else. 

There is a lot more to the book, and I haven't done justice to it all. But I hope the above does make you want to read the book, for it did make me reflect on my life.