Long before the Kurukshetra war, when Yayati ruled Aryavarta as emperor of the lunar dynasty, his story turned on three people: Devayani, daughter of the Asura preceptor Shukracharya; Sarmishtha, a princess who became her servant and then her rival; and Yayati himself, whose curse would eventually demand that his sons surrender their youth so he could live longer. These events from the Mahabharata, which predate the Kaurava story by generations, have rarely been told from Devayani's perspective.
Manjula Tekal's retelling restores Devayani to the centre of her own story. The novel traces how a failed love affair between Devayani and Kacha — the young disciple sent by the Devas to steal the secret of resurrection from Shukracharya — set in motion every event that followed. The friendship between Devayani and Sarmishtha, the reversal of their positions, and the passions that corroded each relationship are examined with the psychological weight of literary fiction while keeping faith with the mythological source.
Readers who know the Kaurava story will find here the ancestral strand from which it grew; those new to the Mahabharata will find an entry point that asks the harder questions the epic raises about loyalty, desire, and consequence.
Long before the Ramayana and Mahabharata wars were fought, Yayati, a scion of the lunar dynasty, was the emperor of Aryavarta, the land of the virtuous. He was an ancestor of the Kaurava princes. A tale of love, friendship, betrayal, and passion in the backdrop of a war between the Devas and the Asuras, Devayani, is a modern retelling of an ancient tale from the Mahabharata. Devayani, the self- willed daughter of Sukracharya, the Asura preceptor, became wife of emperor Yayati through a failed love affair with Kacha. How did the princess Sarmishtha, her friend, become her servant and then her rival? Why did Yayati have to ask his children to make the ultimate sacrifice-to give up their youth for him? Devayani takes you on a journey through infatuation, lust, jealousy, rage, betrayal, love and wisdom.Yayati's son Puru would later inherit the land of Saraswati from his father and start the Puru dynasty; the story of which is synonymous with Bharata. PREVIEW
