Book Description

Why did Lord Shiva, at the instigation of Brahma, tease Parvati?Why do we not use the champak flower to worship Lord Shiva?In which purana would you learn about a prayer for Lord Vishnu to protect you in all four directions with his sudarshana chakra, koumodaki gada, sounanda hala, and shatana mushala?Why did Sita mata curse fire, the river Phalgu, the ketaki flower and the cow?Which Purana tells us the story of the lake that turned four black swans to white, and why?Why did Draupadi have five husbands?What does it mean to read abridged translations of all nineteen Puranas in one year? This is the book of questions and answers, of those nineteen books, thirty-eight reviews, and the year that went by. Anvita and Anika, sisters, read abridged translations of the nineteen maha-Puranas over the course of a year. In addition to thirty-eight reviews, there are also several anecdotes of their experiences through the year as they read and wrote, and how school, studies, exams, and a maniacal father drove them to ever greater depths of despair. In the book you will find over a hundred stories, factoids, and nuggets from the Puranas. How Parvati became Gouri, stories about Kurukshetra, the punya that accumulates from reading the Puranas, the types of fasts to observe and their benefits, the types of donations one can give, episodes from the Mahabharata, different accounts of how Ganesha was born and how he broke a tusk, and many, many more - as seen from the eyes of two young children!