Draupadi returns with a vengeance

The importance of the Sanskrit epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata in the shaping of modern Indian social morality can hardly be overestimated. Many women have long chafed against Sita as a model of feminine virtue, deriving inspiration instead from the Mahabharata’s powerful and polyandrous Draupadi. This article analyses two contemporary authors of popular fiction who have produced Draupadi-centric adaptions of this epic: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in The Palace of Illusions and Trisha Das in Ms Draupadi Kuru. Beyond confirming the existence of a booming Indian market for mythological fiction, such counter-texts to a traditionally patriarchal epic suggest an ongoing search for vernacular feminisms as alternatives to adopting western models of modern (and secular) gender identities.