I have one more important story to tell you all about Maya. This gives Maya a face as not only the father of Mandodari (beautiful wife of the fallen demon king Ravana,) restorer of the monkey kingdom of Lanka after its destruction, and enemy of Vishwakarma, but also as the architect of the stunning Pandava palace, the Maya Sabha...

In Indraprastha, capital city of Pandu, the prince Arjuna met with a Brahmana who was gleaming of gold and radiating fire. The Brahmana mentioned to both Arjuna and the universal spirit Krishna that he had gone hungry, and Arjuna promised him that he would do whatever was asked of him so that the man would not go hungry. Revealing himself as the fire god Agni, the Brahmana confessed that he was actually hungry to burn down the Khandava forest. Yet Takshaka, king of snakes, would not let that happen - by default, neither would Indra, god of the firmament, as he and Takshaka were close friends and allies.

Arjuna and Krishna promised to protect Agni as he burned the forest in exchange for solid weapons. Indra was furious, and waged war against them with his divine allies for quite some time...

Even after Indra was called off of his crusade to save the forest, Maya was trapped in the Khandava forest, and being targeted for attack by Krishna. He sought help from Arjuna, who protected him and called off Krishna's attack. After the forest had burned, Agni returned to his Brahmana form and allowed Arjuna and Krishna to keep the weapons and chariot he had given them. Maya promised, because of their protection, to build a grand palace for the Pandavas on the cleared land of the Khandava forest.

Maya spared nothing when building this incredibly beautiful palace, called the Maya Sabha. Rubies, emerald, sapphires, and diamonds were abundant in his architecture and are reflected throughout the entire palace. He used the full extent of his knowledge and applied illusions to make clear glass floors appear to be lakes, mirrors implying walls that don't actually exist, and various other mirages throughout the building. Translucence and reflection used by Maya to capture tricks of the light made the palatial wonder full of novelties and excitement for visitors; in one now infamous event, Duryodhana disrobed and tried to step into one of Maya's glass pond illusions, but was unable to. Frustrated, he stormed over to a seemingly solid red patch in the floor that was actually a pond reflecting rubies, and splashed into the water.There were stunning, shining golden columns and archways, which almost seemed to make even the brilliant rays of the sun seem lifeless and dull. Maya used these effects to make the palace essentially appear to be on fire and halfway off of the ground, with the bottom third of it covered by clouds! He used jewels, gems, and other tools of beauty to create this seemingly magical, illusory palace for the Pandavas, all because Arjuna (and by association, Krishna) spared his life.


Author's note: There are at least fifteen different versions of this story that I found while researching, so I tried to incorporate them all together as much as I could while condensing a very long story into a little bit more of a readable format. It's hard to tell the story of Maya building the palace for the Pandavas without telling the whole (but abridged) story of the Khandava forest and mentioning Duryodhana's embarrassing fall into the pool while still trying to keep the focus on Maya himself. I thought it would be a good idea to end the storybook with how Maya the person made the ultimate palace filled with illusions and visual deceptions, asking everyone to put aside what your eyes can see because your eyes can lie to you. To be honest, I picture the Pandava palace to be like Yen Sid's dwelling from Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Throughout the other stories, Maya is a concept of witchcraft and illusion. In this story and the many, many versions of it that I pored through to try and make mine seem coherent, Maya now has a sort of face, and everything comes around full circle. I would definitely encourage anyone to reasearch some of the different versions of the forest burning and subsequent construction of the palace. It's a great story, even if it is a little long.