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Abstract
This paper focuses on how myth has been handled to explore the inner and outer world of women in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions (2008). Myth has strengthened literature and has great affinity with it. Both myth and culture are the products of human intellects and are aesthetic expression of man. They have great similarities that represent social problems. Indian mythology is vast and scattered among many literary works like Vedas, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, Buddhist writings, etc. Retelling of the Indian mythological stories re-establishes their significance in the modern Indian social context. In The Palace of Illusions, Divakaruni does not tend to invent a totally new world out of Veda Vyasa’s Mahabharata. The novel honestly continues the story-line of the epic without introducing any new character. But she re-invents those aspects of mythical epic which otherwise seemed to remain unnoticed so long by the readers. She attempts to focus on those aspects which did not get much attention in the original narrative.