In an age when historical fiction often amounts to glorified costume dramas confused about whether they are history lessons or romantic novellas, Butshikan enters the literary space like a war conch. Ancient, resonant, and utterly uninterested in playing to gallery tastes, it does not pander. It provokes. This is not history retold. It is history reimagined through a civilisational gaze that neither flatters nor forgives. A Story That Refuses to Apologise for Its Intelligence How refreshing, in a world saturated with historical novels that treat the reader as a well-meaning but dim cousin, to find a work that assumes its audience might actually know the difference between the Cholas and the Chauhans. Butshikan…