Pandava Mahaprasthana – A-Z Challenge 2025 – Theme Reveal

Namaskaram!

It’s that time of the year again when we are excited about the month-long A-Z blogging challenge. Last year, I wrote Mahabharata Mash Up, where I shared snippets from the great Hindu epic written by Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa. It was a Mahaprasthana in its own way!

This year, I debated doing a season two for the same theme. However, my 2025 reading year began with Parva by S.L. Bhyrappa. Then, I read two other retellings of the Mahabharata by contemporary authors (Goddess of the River by Vaishnavi Patel and Draupadi by Saiswaroopa Iyer). This made me wonder if I could write a retelling too, though not as a novel but as a series of posts. What better than April’s much-anticipated A-Z Challenge to implement the idea?

Considering the serial-like format, I wanted to retell the events in a non-linear fashion. Also, I needed a theme to keep them connected. My grey cells refused to cooperate, so I hired my friend’s brain. A big thank you to Parag for suggesting two topics the moment I asked for ideas.

Presenting the theme of A-Z Challenge 2025—Pandava Mahaprasthana—the great last journey of the Pandavas, who renounced their kingdom thirty-six years after the Kurukshetra war and traveled throughout Bharatavarsha before finally climbing the Himalayas and leaving the earth.

The Mahaprasthana and Swargarohana Parvas are tiny and have little detail about their last journey. However, the calculations by Jijith Nadumuri Ravi show they spent around nineteen years on this last pilgrimage and settled in Mansarovar. According to the researcher, the Pandavas passed away just three years before King Janamejaya (their great-grandson) conducted the snake sacrifice to avenge his father’s death.

This gave me a perfect timeline to use their Mahaprasthana for an introspective character-oriented retelling of the Mahabharata. Though I had to opt for more ‘tell’ and less ‘show’ because of the exhaustive content, I tried to include a few scenes to balance the narration. Each post is from one of the six POVs (points of view) of the five Pandava brothers and their common wife, Draupadi. Given the format, you will notice some repetition from different perspectives.

It’s important to note that this series is my attempt to create character profiles for the Pandavas and Draupadi (and a few other characters). We can call this ‘the author’s version of Mahabharata’. It is a fictional retelling with deviations from the original and has to be treated as such. However, I tried to use as many elements as possible from the ithihasa. Moreover, I covered only a few selected events in this series (the word count is on the higher side as it is).

Do note that prior knowledge about the Mahabharata will help when you read these posts. I haven’t gone into lengthy explanations (read a summary of the Mahabharata). However, to make things easier, I’m providing the family tree (without the less-mentioned wives of the Pandavas, whom I had to remove for convenience) and the timeline I followed (with due credits to The Geography of Mahabharata Vol I & II).

You will notice the influence of retellings I’ve read or watched (others include Sonali Raje’s Empress of Indraprastha series and Telugu movies like Narthanasala, Pandava Vanavasam, etc.). I took concepts that appealed to me and gave them my twist. The narration in most posts follows a template (structure) for reader-friendliness.

Hope you enjoy the month-long Mahaprasthana along with the Pandavas and Draupadi.

I’m participating in #BlogchatterA2Z.

I will add the links to all posts here.

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A: Always on the Move, Arjuna

B: Bhima Bears the Burdens

C: Calls of Duty for Yudhistira

D: Dreams and Decisions of Draupadi

E: Everlasting Friendship with Krishna

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