Book of Yudhistir

by Buddhadeva Bose, Sujit Mukherjee (Translator)

English, Bengali (translation)

206 pages, Hardcover

Published December 1, 1983

About the author

Buddhadeva Bose (also spelt Buddhadeb Bosu) (Bengali: বুদ্ধদেব বসু ) was a major Bengali writer of the 20th century. Frequently referred to as a poet, he was a versatile writer who wrote novels, short stories, plays and essays in addition to poetry. He was an influential critic and editor of his time. He is recognized as one of the five poets who moved to introduce modernity into Bengali poetry. It has been said that since Tagore, perhaps, there has been no greater talent in Bengali literature. His wife Protiva Bose was also a writer.

Buddhadeva Bose received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1967 for his verse play Tapaswi O Tarangini, received the Rabindra Puraskar in 1974 for Swagato Biday(poetry) and was honoured with a Padma Bhushan in 1970.

Reviews

[Akshay · Rating 5 out of 5]

The field of Mahabharata studies in India is an ongoing process with new perspectives and retellings emerging frequently. It is true that in a country that it is almost impossible to be divorced from mythology, given that they pervade our worlds in several ways, often unconsciously. It is fairly well-known that the Mahabharata with its numerous meanderings and digressions makes for a fascinating read.

‘The Book of Yudhisthira’ is a brilliant collection of essays which was initially serialised for a magazine and published as a book in 1974. The essays are a good launch pad and seek to identify meanings incorporated within ancient ‘myths’ in the modern day context. In the essay, ‘What Warrior, Which God’, for example, Buddhadev Bose questions Krishna’s alleged claim that he would not lift arms in the war and also questions the devious divinity for all the trickery and conspiracies that were hatched. A few pages later, he also questions the lust for winning the war, almost contesting the idea of the war being a dharmayuddha.

With adequate and well-researched references to Ramayan and other foreign texts, both ancient and modern, the debate invariably concentrates around the Mahabharata. The result is an evocative yet finely argued treatise that contributes significantly to scholarship in the field of Mahabharata studies. These finely argued essays open up new gateways and invite readers to expand their horizons in order to help them interpret the Mahabharata in contemporary terms. If there is one scholarly interpretation of the Mahabharata one must read, I would strongly recommend this, for it deserves a much wider readership than it currently has.

[Nandini · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of those very rare books featuring Yudhishthir as the central character and I found this after a very long search. 'Yuganta' by Iravati Karwe was a brief commentary on Mahabharat and its' central characters while this was like the bare analysis of the epic as a standalone text very critically, placing Yudhisthir at the very focus of it. It does not consider any of the later popular beliefs or the other puranic literature with parts of the stor - only what finds a place in the original text is up for discussion here. I loved the devil's advocate approach taken by the author to argue, scrutinize and counter with reasoning, as if having an argument with his own self or perhaps us. The perspectives were fresh and intriguing. The author time and again makes you want to think and analyse and read between the lines.
So many known, little-known and unknown excerpts and details were brought to fore.
This one is a must read for all people who are fascinated by Vyas's epic and intend to go deeper into it.