Author - Amish Tripathi
 
Goodreads Rating - 3.82
 
The Oath of the Vayuputras is the third book of Amish Tripathi, third book of Amishverse, and also the third book of Shiva Trilogy. The book was released on 27 February 2013, through Westland Press and completes the mythical story about an imaginary land Meluha and how its inhabitants were saved by a barbarian named Shiva. Starting from where the previous installment left off, Shiva discovers what is the true evil in The Oath of the Vayuputras. Shiva then declares a holy war on those who seek to continue to use it, mainly the Emperors Daksha and Dilipa, who are being controlled by the sage Bhrigu. The battle rages on and Shiva travels to the land of Pariha to consult with Vayuputras, a legendary tribe. By the time he returns, the war has ended with Sati, his wife, being murdered. An enraged Shiva destroys the capital of Meluha and Somras is wiped out of history. The story concludes with Shiva and his associates being popularized as Gods for their deeds and accomplishments.
 
After its release, The Oath of the Vayuputras received positive reviews for the story and characterisation with Business Standard calling Tripathi 'India's Tolkien'. However, his continued insistence on using modern, easy English gave way to a negative review by Mint. The book was a commercial success with 350,000 copies for pre-order, and an initial print-run of 500,000 copies. On the first day of the release itself, the book sold the initial print-run breaking the record for the fastest selling book in India. This prompted Westland to pay Tripathi an advance amount of ₹5 crore (US$630,000) for Tripathi's next book series. As of June 2015 over 2.5 million copies of the Shiva Trilogy have been sold with gross retail sales of over ₹60 crore (US$7.5 million), making it the fastest selling book series in the history of Indian publishing.
 
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