Asura
Tale of the Vanquished
The story of Ravana and his people .Author : Anand Neelkantan
Wow, this book is amazingly written . It portrays an altogether a different aspect of Ramayana.
Asura is tale of the asura community whom Ravana revived and led to perish too. I saw this book during my Local train Travel and was intrigued . Ordered one from amazon . Worth the money. :)
I am loving this genre of books which are portraying the hindu mythology gods as humans. It makes sense ,people of Indian have had exposure to lot of cultures mixing up,stories mixing up .We have build many stories and few mythology books like vedas ,Ramayana ,Mahabharatha,Gita,Puranas etc etc. I have reviewed about Shiva Triology : The Secret of Nagas ,The immortals of Meluha,The oath of Vayuputras ,All portrayed the characters as Gods and Demons . I wonder if they were humans and we made them God because of their good moral characters and charisma .
Asura is one such attempt which shows the other side of the war and No wonder it's possibility that it may have been true.
We have had the evils of racism on base of skin colors, we have had casteism and history has proved that Religion was major reason for wars .
We have matured upon these ideologies but i would want to know the other part of story .
Book Review: Asura book has tried to show other side of Ramayana . The story of Ravan and his Asura people. Story is First person narrative , mostly by Bhadra and Ravana. Some other characters also had their part. Asura were supposed to be most developed ,democratic and cultured society during the reign of Bali ,an Asura emperor. Then Devas dynasty took over them and asura empire was in perish .
Ravana is portrayed as a leader of Asura born in those times. He faced the sufferings ,he opposed many deva customs .He decided to lead and revive Asura from ruins . I his journey he did many good things ,he had high temper and pride ,followed asura principles but he also changed or improvised when required.
Bhadra was a common man whose family was destroyed by Devas. He wanted to avenge his family and he carved his way to Ravana to do so . He was a loyal and faithful follower of Ravana . He did many sacrifices for Ravana and never demanded anything in return .His motive was to destroy Devas. His character is the major character of story , he narrates the events that occur during the story.
Sita here is portrayed as long lost daughter of Ravana . In South India there is variant version of Ramyana which mentions Sita as daughter of Ravana.
Ram ,Lakshaman ,Hanuman ,Sugreev etc are the same characters as Ramayana. Only in human form and with human errs like betrayer,cunning nature,pride and ego . It's story of course , Someone has to be bad. Ram has been mentioned as Good person in wrong hands and it's same in Ramayana too.
Story has been inspired by the events in Ramayana but view is of an Asura. That changes the way we see the story altogether. Here;s small extract from book
I don't want to reveal the story but this is amazing book . A must read. Read it :) . My recommendation.
"History is written by Victors"This is proven fact, it's so obvious that victors wrote all good things about themselves but what about the loosing side!!?
Asura is one such attempt which shows the other side of the war and No wonder it's possibility that it may have been true.
We have had the evils of racism on base of skin colors, we have had casteism and history has proved that Religion was major reason for wars .
We have matured upon these ideologies but i would want to know the other part of story .
Book Review: Asura book has tried to show other side of Ramayana . The story of Ravan and his Asura people. Story is First person narrative , mostly by Bhadra and Ravana. Some other characters also had their part. Asura were supposed to be most developed ,democratic and cultured society during the reign of Bali ,an Asura emperor. Then Devas dynasty took over them and asura empire was in perish .
Ravana is portrayed as a leader of Asura born in those times. He faced the sufferings ,he opposed many deva customs .He decided to lead and revive Asura from ruins . I his journey he did many good things ,he had high temper and pride ,followed asura principles but he also changed or improvised when required.
Bhadra was a common man whose family was destroyed by Devas. He wanted to avenge his family and he carved his way to Ravana to do so . He was a loyal and faithful follower of Ravana . He did many sacrifices for Ravana and never demanded anything in return .His motive was to destroy Devas. His character is the major character of story , he narrates the events that occur during the story.
Sita here is portrayed as long lost daughter of Ravana . In South India there is variant version of Ramyana which mentions Sita as daughter of Ravana.
Ram ,Lakshaman ,Hanuman ,Sugreev etc are the same characters as Ramayana. Only in human form and with human errs like betrayer,cunning nature,pride and ego . It's story of course , Someone has to be bad. Ram has been mentioned as Good person in wrong hands and it's same in Ramayana too.
Story has been inspired by the events in Ramayana but view is of an Asura. That changes the way we see the story altogether. Here;s small extract from book
"I am a non-entity – invisible, powerless and negligible. No epics will ever be written about me. I have suffered both Ravana and Rama – the hero and the villain or the villain and the hero. When the stories of great men are told, my voice may be too feeble to be heard. Yet, spare me a moment and hear my story, for I am Bhadra, the Asura, and my life is the tale of the loser"
I don't want to reveal the story but this is amazing book . A must read. Read it :) . My recommendation.
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