A review of the book 'The Flight of Deities' curated by Avatans Kumar and published by INDICA.
A collection of stories based on actual historical events as depicted in Padmasri Meenakshi Jain’s seminal book “Flight of Deities”. Inspired by the historical account, various authors have each focused on a unique historical event, clothed it in flesh and bones, and brought it to life through the magic of prose. From Aryavarta to Dakshinatwa, from the holy lands of Ayodhya, Vrindavan and many more, the stories pace, digging into the harsh realities of foreign invasions while portraying vividly the efforts undergone by the devout to preserve their culture and faith. Tales of human grit and determination to preserve, prevail, persist in the face of brute force and annihilation – truly any book lover’s delight!
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Coming up: A review of the book 'The Flight of Deities' curated by Avatans Kumar.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
Before I proceed, a full disclosure: This book was bought with my own money and not been provided to me by the author or publisher.
Little bit about the curator:
Avatans Kumar is a columnist, public speaker, media panelist, and activist.
Originally from Patna, Bihar, Avatans holds graduate degrees in Linguistics from Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he also taught Linguistics, and Hindi as a foreign language respectively.
Let me read what is written on the back cover:
A collection of stories based on actual historical events as depicted in Padmasri Meenakshi Jain’s seminal book “Flight of Deities”. Inspired by the historical account, various authors have each focused on a unique historical event, clothed it in flesh and bones, and brought it to life through the magic of prose. From Aryavarta to Dakshinatwa, from the holy lands of Ayodhya, Vrindavan and many more, the stories pace, digging into the harsh realities of foreign invasions while portraying vividly the efforts undergone by the devout to preserve their culture and faith. Tales of human grit and determination to preserve, prevail, persist in the face of brute force and annihilation – truly any book lover’s delight!
It is a well known fact that invaders destroyed our temples and the vigrahas were mercilessly smashed or stolen. Many of these stolen ones ended up in foreign museums. All this has been documented in Dr. Meenakshi Jain's must-read book "Flight of Deities". Taking inspiration from this book, INDICA and well-known writer-activist Avatans Kumar have brought out "Flight of Deities - an Anthology of Desecration and Devotion". By the way, this book's foreword is by Dr. Meenakshi Jain.
This anthology presents the history from various places of our land i.e. Bharat. Stories of temple destruction and other atrocities are presented not as an academic historical account, but in the form of an engaging narrative. Ten authors have penned ten brilliant stories that bring out the history of devotion which has helped to save our deities.
In the 1st story, Surela Chakraborty presents an anguished account of the trauma and unsuccessful endeavours of a young archaeologist to recover the lost image of Vaikuntha Vishnu from the Vishnu temple at Khajuraho built by King Yasovarman. I hope someday there will be a happy ending to this story.
The 2nd story is by Devamalya De in which she narrates the tale of the brave Rajputs who take the image of Shrinathji to his final destination of Nathdwara following Aurangzeb’s order for the destruction of temples.
The 3rd story by Kavita Krishna Meegama shows the harsh reality of being kafirs (infidels) in Multan in the medieval era, of forcible abduction, conversion and marriage of young girls, which unfortunately, continues to this day.
The 4th story by Aneesh Gokhale narrates the history of the Sun temple at Konark and Jagannath temple at Puri which was invaded thirteen times!
The 5th story is by Pranshu Behari Saxena narrates a tale set in Delhi during the twilight years of the Mughals, a bold plan to ransack the imperial treasury and royal jewels to recompense looted temples and a daring rescue of a Rajput queen who had been married to emperor Farrukh Siyar.
The 6th story by Aditi Gopinath tells the tale of Suha, Ma Sarasvati and the tragic destruction of the Martanda temple which was pulled down by iconoclasts.
The 7th is by Aditi Banerjee which chronicles the story of the deities, Govindadeva and Radhadevi in their new abode after their flight from the Braj region and the destiny of a young boy entrusted with the responsibility of caring for them.
The 8th is by Rajesh Ramachander narrates the story to safeguard Goddess Meenakshi at her temple in Madurai from the fury of the invading Delhi army led by Malik Gafur, the slave-general of Alauddin Khilji.
The 9th story is by Shubhra Prakash relating with empathy the power of agyaats, the hidden weapons of the king, the desecration of murtis and the transportation of the image of Nataraja to London while paying homage to the late Professor R. Nagaswamy, who played a pivotal role in the return of the deity to India.
The 10th and final story is by Dr. Deepa Duraiswamy which is about how the Meenakshi temple in Madurai was desecrated and worship stopped for some time following an attack by the armies of the Delhi Sultan and the Vijayanagar Prince set out to restore the sanctity of the deity.
Conclusion:
The total number of pages is only 216 and all the ten stories have been narrated in a very engrossing and fast-paced manner. They realistically depict the spirit of the times and the massive efforts of a large section of the society to reclaim and restore their heritage. There are quite a few typos in the first few pages which I am sure will be corrected in the subsequent reprints. If you are willing to overlook these minor irritants, then this is definitely worth a read.
I give this book 4.5/5. The printed price of the book is Rs. 300/- but at the time of recording this podcast, it is available at a discounted price of only Rs.225/- on Amazon India. I will provide all the respective buy links in the show notes. Please feel free to check them out.
Last but not the least, thank you for spending your valuable time listening to this book review. Really grateful. Please don't forget to subscribe to the Historylogy podcast on your favourite podcasting app and also feel free to leave a review. Also, please check historylogy.com for all previous episodes. Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you. Jai Hind! Vande Mataram!