'The Palace of Illusions' by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a novel based on which epic?

"The Palace of Illusions" is a novel by the Indian-American writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, published in 2008. It retells the Mahabharata from the point of view of Draupadi (called Panchaali in the novel).

About the novel:

It follows Draupadi's life from her miraculous birth from fire, through her marriage to the five Pandava brothers, the building of the magical palace at Indraprastha (the "palace of illusions" built by the asura architect Maya), the game of dice in which she is humiliated, the years of exile, and the Kurukshetra war.

It gives a woman's perspective on the epic, showing Draupadi's feelings, ambitions and her complex relationships with Krishna, her husbands and Karna.

About Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni:

She was born in 1956 in Kolkata and moved to the USA for higher studies. She teaches creative writing at the University of Houston.

Her other novels include:

• "The Mistress of Spices" (1997), which was made into a film with Aishwarya Rai.
• "Sister of My Heart" (1999).
• "Before We Visit the Goddess" (2016).
• "The Forest of Enchantments" (2019), which retells the Ramayana from Sita's point of view.
• "The Last Queen" (2021), about Maharani Jindan Kaur of the Sikh Empire.
• "Independence" (2022), set during the Partition of Bengal.

Other modern retellings of the epics:

• "Jaya": Devdutt Pattanaik (an illustrated retelling of the Mahabharata).
• "The Great Indian Novel": Shashi Tharoor (the Mahabharata as the freedom struggle).
• "Ajaya" and "Asura": Anand Neelakantan (from the point of view of the Kauravas and Ravana).
• "Sita: Warrior of Mithila": Amish Tripathi.
• "Yajnaseni": Pratibha Ray (an Odia novel about Draupadi; Pratibha Ray received the Jnanpith Award in 2011).

Why not the other options?

• ✗Ramayana is retold by Divakaruni in "The Forest of Enchantments", not "The Palace of Illusions".
• ✗Silappadikaram is a Tamil epic by Ilango Adigal.
• ✗Gita Govinda is a Sanskrit poem by Jayadeva.