Crowns And Daggers [MAHABHARAT]

Author's note pt.2

This is going to be a long one but I request y'all to go through this.

Before going into the story I just wanted to give you a brief history lesson to make things more clear. The story will be set in the early-mid Vedic age around 1100 BCE. Now the dates of the actual Mahabharat vary but this time period makes more sense since it's after the compilation of Rig Veda and easier to source practices and traditions from. My biggest worry was the outfits but with this time period, we got them all covered lol.

(Something like this but with more jewelry)

Another important plot point is female spies. The concept was common in the later Vedic age and is believed to have been started by Chandragupta Maurya and continued till the Gupta period (also existed in medieval India). Chanakya's Arthshastra and Megasthanes' accounts mentioned kings having an army of female bodyguards, female monks were often used as spies, and the existence of Vishkanya. I will incorporate these themes in this story with Dushala working as a spy for her brother.

Dushala is also a dancer, I don't think dance was considered a respectable art form, especially for a royal princess but we need it for her to be a good spy since dance is where she gets her agility from. She is also very good at playing veena which is also linked with another one of her skills

According to Vedas, Kshatriyas were expected to enroll in gurukuls at the age of 8 and remain there till the age of 25 but again don't want to make age an issue so let's assume they stay in the gurukul until 16. And for the marriage, rig veda shows that the brides were clearly adults but since we do not have a number I have settled on 21 for Women and 25 for men.

Also, Karna's character DOES NOT belong to a lower caste, he is the son of a charioteer who was considered pretty important in society since they accompanied the generals and kings during warfare, so he was up there in the social order ofc not as high as the royal family but his family should've been important.

Duryodhana is another important character in this story and the plot will primarily revolve around the relationship between these three (Dushala, Duryodhana, Karna, and of course the Pandavas). All the Characters except for Dushala will stay close to their original versions for the most part. Since Dushala does not take centre stage in the epic I don't have any information on her personality so this character will be entirely made up.

Lastly, I just want to clear up the age of the characters, as I have mentioned Karna will be 3 years older than Yudhisthir and 4 years older than Duryodhana and Dushala. There is a 100-day gap between the birth of Duryodhana and Dushala. Bheem is one day older than Duryodhana. Then comes Arjun, a year later and Nakul and Sahadev are the youngest and one year younger than Arjun. Also, we will assume that Yudhisthir was 8 when Pandu died and Kunti brought them back to Hastinapur (Bheem 7, Arjun 6, Nakul and Sahadev 5)

I have summed up everything that I wanted to convey (hopefully) and I hope the story isn't all over the place
Happy Reading :)))