In the forest of insecurities, is it possible to discover humanity through pleasure?
Can we stop seeing each other as predator, prey, rival or mate, and rediscover ourselves as lovers?
Does the divine reside in sensual delight, in emotional intimacy and in aesthetic experience?

Yes, yes, yes.
That is the promise of the Bhagavata.
The Bhagavata is the story of Krishna, known as Shyam to those who find beauty, wisdom and love in his dark complexion. It is the third great Hindu epic after the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. However, this narration was composed in fragments over thousands of years, first as the Harivamsa, then as the Bhagavata Purana, and finally as the passionate songs of poet-sages in various regional languages.

This book seamlessly weaves the story from Krishna’s birth to his death, or rather from his descent to the butter-smeared world of happy women to his ascent from the blood-soaked world of angry men.

For Hindus, Vishnu is God who inspires man to discover humanity by engaging with the world. Artists have visualized him with as curly-haired, dark complexioned man with a smile on his lips and a sparkle in his eyes. Draped in yellow silk, garlanded with forest flowers, bedecked with dolphin-shaped earrings, anointed with sandal paste, he reclines on a thousand-hooded serpent that floats on the ocean of milk and rides a golden hawk bearing in his arms a conch-shell, a wheel, a mace and a lotus. Poets say that when he is awake, the world takes shape; when he is asleep, the world ceases to be. Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, follows him wherever he goes. To him is made offerings of rich creamy butter. Sometimes, the upright Ram, he is worshipped across India as Balaji, Shreenathji, Jagannath, Ranganath and Badrinath. Locked in the stories, symbols and rituals of Vishnu is the wisdom of the ancestors, transmitted over hundreds of years. This book attempts to unlock seven secrets that are relevant even in modern times.

Before nationalists and patriots, before colonizers and invaders, before emperors and kings, India was woven together by pilgrim paths. Seekers and sages travelled north and south, east and west, across mountains and along rivers, ignoring artificial boundaries, seeking and finding gods. Renowned mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik takes us on an insightful journey to thirty-two holy sites where ancient and modern deities unravel the complex and layered history, geography, and imagination of the land once known as ‘land of the Indian blackberry’ (Jambudvipa), ‘land of rivers’ (Sindhusthala in Sanskrit, or Hindustan in Persian), ‘expanse of King Bharata’ (Bharatvarsha, or Bharatkhanda), and even ‘abode of joy’ (Sukhavati to the Chinese).