Do you know where Lord Shiva battled Lord Krishna or when Indra attempted foeticide? Hindu Puranas and shastras are filled with many such anecdotes which are little known to the general public.
In a bid to bring such lesser known tales from the Puranas to the fore, a youth from Cuttack, Satyarth Nayak, has compiled 100 tales from Hindu mythologies and compiled them into a book, Mahagatha: 100 Tales from the Puranas.
The book was published by the Harper Collins India on December 8, 2022, and its paperback version is available on Amazon at Rs 475.
Nayak has dug up lesser-known stories, like the one where Vishnu is beheaded or where Saraswati curses Lakshmi or where Harishchandra tricks Varuna. Nayak also recounts these 100 tales in a unique chronological format, beginning with Creation in Satya Yuga and ending with the advent of Kali Yuga.
Using Puranic markers, he has constructed a narrative that travels through the four yugas, offering continuous and organic action. However, Nayak claims that these stories are not isolated events but linked to each other in the grand scheme of things; that every occurrence has a past and a future, a cause and effect, an interconnected cycle of karma and karma-phal.
An author, script-writer and journalist, Nayak’s debut novel, The Emperor’s Riddles was released in 2014.
Nayak has a Masters degree in English literature from St. Stephen's College, Delhi. As per his bio on Amazon, writing has always been his passion. He was a Correspondent with CNN-IBN which won him the SAARC Heal Honour 2008 for Health Reporting.