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| Edited By: Pooja Patel |Source: DNA |Updated: Dec 05, 2017, 01:56 PM IST
Madhurika Maheshwari's third book Indrani: Demon's Daughter,Queen of Gods, tells the story of Indrani, a little known goddess of the Indian pantheon.
Shachi, who was the wife of Lord Indra and came to be known as Indrani after her marriage, was a woman of substance, says the writer. The goddess was a Hrushika (learned sage) who could even compose suktas (shlokas) in the Rig Veda. "This was rare for a woman in those times, as even records of Vedas show that there are around four women only who wrote suktas for any Veda," says Maheshwari.
Maheshwari's fascination with lesser known gods and goddesses can be gauged by the fact that she has written two books earlier about two such deities - Hariti and Kubera. "I realised so much is written about Vishnu, Shiva, Surya and the like; that one more book about them would not make much of a difference," she says.
Maheshwari says she has been an avid reader since childhood, especially of Indian mythology. "I read a lot of mythological tales and learnt a lot about several characters from the tales." The transition from reading to writing about mythology came after her family members motivated her. "I hated writing; it didn't excite me," she admits. "After some persuasion from my family, I started writing stories around the characters that I had read all these years and put my knowledge to good use."
Over the years Maheshwari had come across several such lesser known deities. But the decision to write a book about one came during a trip to Rajasthan. At the Nagda temple near Udaipur she spotted a statue of Indrani carved on the wall, and thought she should write about her. "She was the daughter of a demon, but ended up as the queen of Indra's Devloka. It was an extremely fascinating combination," she says.
It took four years of research to write the book. She spoke to scholars like Devangana Desai, Lokesh Chandra, Saryuben Joshi and others who suggested books and reference material. "Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya was a great resource for books, while museums around the world lent me photographs for the book," says the writer happily. She also travelled to Bhuleshwar Mahadev temple in Yawat, and temples in south India to see sculptures of Indrani on the temple walls.
The result is a gold-mine of information on a goddess who had, in a sense, languished in the margins of Indian mythology.
