An ancient epic through new eyes
Divakaruni recasts the 2,500-year-old Mahabharat with a woman in the central role
By NORA SETON
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
The Palace of Illusions.
By Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.
Doubleday, 360 pp. $23.95.
Among the greatest — and longest — epic poems of ancient literature is the Mahabharat. Written in Sanskrit, it tells the story of two branches of an Indian dynasty, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, whose lives are consumed by a lifelong battle for the throne of Hastinapur, and some of its verses trace back to the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E.
From Gilgamesh to Hector, men rule the plotlines of ancient epics, while dutiful or vengeful women mark notches along the way. This imbalance has piqued the interest of modern-day women writers and led to books — for example Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent and Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad — that give rightful voice to women lost in history’s crevasses. Now we have The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of several award-winning and best-selling novels and a creative-writing professor at the University of Houston.
The Indian-born Divakaruni grew up on tales from the Mahabharat. In an author’s note she writes of how as a child reading the poem she told herself, “If I ever wrote a book … I would place the women in the forefront of the action. I would uncover the story that lay invisible between the lines of the men’s exploits.”
Her novel is a seriously condensed version of the Mahabharat, set down in uncomplicated prose and narrated through the eyes of Panchaali, a princess born from the flames. She is the daughter of King Drupad, whose thirst for vengeance against an old enemy launches the whole story.
Panchaali has the colorful distinction of marrying all five heroic Pandava brothers at the same time. This might be an emblematic predicament in an ancient story of gods and men, but Divakaruni, a 21st-century woman, lets her character feel some 21st-century angst. Here is Panchaali, describing a soothsayer’s verdict:
“I would be wife to each brother for a year at a time, from oldest to youngest, consecutively. During that year, the other brothers were to keep their eyes lowered. In a postscript [the soothsayer] added that he would give me a boon to balance the one that had landed me with five spouses. Each time I went to a new brother, I’d be a virgin again.”
Panchaali founders in anger and helplessness — her true love is the lower-caste Karna. “Nor was I particularly delighted by the virginity boon,” she says, “which seemed designed more for my husbands’ benefit than mine.” Nonetheless, she complies. Duty is an elemental pillar of Hinduism, and The Palace of Illusions, like the Mahabharat, is a tribute to Hinduism’s central virtues. Old vendettas and common greed push the story forward, but they only serve to highlight the path to eternal redemption through moral duty, right conduct and honorable death.
The title, The Palace of Illusions, refers to multiple-wed Panchaali’s citadel of miraculous beauty and song. Its dimensions shift constantly, “making the palace new each day.” It is lit by glowing jewels, filled by pools of scented water, with crystal walls and faux windows, “floors looking like rivers, waterfalls looking like walls.”
Poetic moments like these are the jewels in this book’s crown. Divakaruni is at her best bringing the reader lush descriptions of Indian beauty and Hindu grace. How history unfolds like a lotus: “An inner petal would never know the older, outer ones, even though it was shaped by them.” How Panchaali’s earthly paradise grows tiresome: “Deep down, though no one would admit it, we were a little restless, a little bored. The current of destiny seemed to have flung us ashore and receded. Not knowing that it was gathering in a tidal wave, we chafed in our calmness, wondering if it would ever claim us again.”
Rarely will you read a book so upholstered with ominous foreboding. Sadly, the worst bears out, and in the end, after the terrible war, Panchaali leaves Hastinapur with her weeping husbands. “Watching them,” she says, “my heart was torn apart by loss, by the realization that, like Krishna, my husbands’ life purpose was over. Having purged the earth of evil, having changed the course of history, having raised a child to be a true king, they had rendered themselves unnecessary.”
Hinduism provides several paths to eternal bliss. Panchaali and her five husbands together embark on an ascent of the Himalayas. “The sages had told us that the road ended upon a sacred peak, a place where earth met the abode of the gods. There a man who was pure enough could push past the veil that separated the worlds and enter heaven.”
Poor Panchaali, who since the moment she stepped from the fire was fated to cause the greatest war of all time, make a million women widows and “die alone, abandoned at the end and yet not so.” She falls from the mountain trail onto “a lip of rock cushioned with snow.” None of her husbands may rescue her. It begins to rain “icy needles.” Broken and frozen, she remembers how Krishna loved the rain.
“About time you thought of me,” Krishna teases, appearing at her side. He guides her from memories of earthly love to those of spiritual love. “If what I felt for Karna was a singeing fire, Krishna’s love was a balm, moonlight over a parched landscape.”
Divakaruni has won great acclaim for her young-adult novel The Conch Bearer. Is it possible The Palace of Illusions was written for children as well as adults? The prose of Panchaali’s narrative is biblically simple, the lessons hand-delivered, the plotline linear. It’s arguable whether an ancient epic could be retold any other way, since they were designed to reach the broadest audience.
Though The Palace of Illusions is sometimes encumbered by its naif style, it provides a radiant entree into an ancient mythology virtually unknown to the Western world. Divakaruni’s impulse to flesh out the women of the Mahabharat results in a charming and remarkable book.
Nora Seton is a Houston writer and frequent reviewer.