the birthplace of Lord Rudra. Shiva travels there with Gopal for asking their help. Characters and locations adapted as per the books from the series and from the official website. Development and release Tripathi had initially decided to write a book on philosophy, but was dissuaded by his family members, so he wrote a book on Shiva, one of the Hindu gods. The story was of how a Tibetan tribal chief called Shiva became the fabled savior of the land of Meluha. His adventures nearly 4000 years ago, morphed into the mythical legends of the Hindu God Shiva. Titled The Immortals of Meluha, the book went on to become a huge commercial success, after its release in February 2010, with film director Karan Johar's Dharma Productions purchasing the film rights of the book. The success prompted Tripathi to pen a second part of the trilogy, titled The Secret of the Nagas. Following what happens in the life of Shiva, the plotline and the geography of the story was expanded to venture into unknown territories. Tripathi quit his job as a banker while writing the book, dedicating his whole time to the marketing and the promotion of the release. The Secret of the Nagas was also a commercial success, with both the books having crossed a print run of a million copies. These books have continued to top the bestseller lists of Nielsen BookScan, with the gross retail sales being impressive at within two years of publishing. In September 2011, Tripathi confirmed that from the next month he would start penning the third installment of the trilogy, The Oath of the Vayuputras. In January 2013, it was revealed that The Oath of the Vayuputras would be released on 27 February of the same year, by Westland Publishing. Tripathi explained that the final version of the book was longer than he had expected it to be, and consisted of 53 chapters, making it twice as long as the other books. During an interview with The Times of India, the author discussed some of the important scenarios being presented in the book. He explained that since Shiva is a mortal in his series, he would have a fitting epilogue in the book, with many of the loose ends of the plot finally being deciphered. Shiva would meet the chief of the Vasudevas and the Vayuputras in the hidden cities of Ujjain and Pariha.