On the request of krishna-sahacharini
Book name: Rise Of Dharma
Author: Semanti Chakraborty
Published on: 2021
Review by _RulerOfHearts_
Synopsis: The book majorly focuses on the protagonist Yudhishthir, the eldest son of Devi Kunti and King Paandu, and the part of Lord Dharma. The trails he goes throughout the journey right from childhood till him being the Chakravarthy Samrat of Aaryavart, is attempted to be depicted. Yudhishthir is a very rare choice as a protagonist for majority of authors working on fictions based on Mahaabhaarat, and the author claims to have taken an insight from the authentic versions of the Epic.
The Story and Accuracy: The story almost follows the account of the Mahaabhaarat and its events, and not much distortions have been made. The author roughly follows the entire sequence in order more or less, and incorporated some figments of imaginations on her own.
But yes, there are a few major stuffs I would like to point out; since the author has followed the authentic versions, the Pandavas already knew about Draupadi's past birth and her being Nalayani, and the decision which Yudhishthir arrives to ask Draupadi to marry the five is actually because of this reason(a very strong reason); this was completely removed from the book with that they had only heard about Draupadi and Dhrishtadyumn being fire born and that her Swayamvar would be held shortly.
The fact that Yudhishthir has a passive aversion for weapons and lacks experience; The five of them were given the training of DhanurVed from Kripacharya majorly, there is no situation where Yudhishthir lags in the basics of arms. He is brilliant in using the various forms of weapons, the plus point being his spear and his skill in driving chariots. He was no ways a poor warrior in any respect. Even before arriving at Hastinapur, it was stated that Pandu taught the five of them the art of weaponry; so him shown having a passivity for weapons is not true.
The fact that Yudhishthir doesn't participate in the Gurudakshina war- The BORI CE mentions that all the Princes, including the Pandavas and Kauravas had participated(Mentioned in Jatugriha Daha Parva), and Arjun was the one who captured Drupad(This part is mentioned in Harivamsa)
Arjun's exile story has completely been fictionalized. The authentic texts and majority of Mahaabhaarat texts claim how he had violated the norms and entered the chambers of Yudhishthir and Draupadi-but here some other reasons are given; Yudhishthir sends Arjun away in order to get more allies on the backdrop that Takshak was creating difficulties for them. Whereas in reality, Yudhishthir repeatedly attempts to stop Arjun from leaving for the twelve year exile-
Other than this, the story and the accuracy more or less works fine and is quite better than most of the books out there.
The Writing And The Character Of Yudhishthir: I needed to club these two sects together because both of them are interdependent on each other.
The writing of the story has been from Yudhishthir's Point Of View. Often first POV writing play a lot in depicting the internal conflicts and thoughts, actions and execution process of the protagonist in a VIVID manner.
