Volume VI Special Issue I January 2026

Name of Author : Dr. Rajashekhar S. M

Title of the paper : The Return of the Epic: A Re reading of the Mahabharata through Arundhati Subramaniams and Kavita Kanes Fiction

Abstract: The Mahabharata, as one of Indias most enduring cultural narratives, continues to inspire reinterpretation across generations. Its vast moral, philosophical, and narrative complexity offers contemporary writers fertile ground to interrogate gender, power, and identity. This paper, titled The Return of the Epic A Re reading of the Mahabharata through Arundhati Subramaniams and Kavita Kanes Fiction, explores how two contemporary women writers reimagine the epic through the lens of feminist revisionism. Arundhati Subramaniams poetic works, such as Draupadi and Epic Woman, and Kavita Kanes novels Karnas Wife and Sitas Sister, reconstruct mythic women not as silent witnesses but as sentient agents who question patriarchal hierarchies. Through a comparative framework, this study demonstrates how Subramaniams mythic introspection and Kanes narrative realism together contribute to a living re inscription of the epic tradition. Drawing upon feminist myth criticism and postcolonial theory, the paper argues that these re readings transcend mere retellings they are cultural acts of reclamation that align the mythic feminine with contemporary discourses of autonomy, spirituality, and subjectivity.

Keywords : Subramaniams, Mahabharata, mythic feminine

DOI :

Page Number : 26-29