The book praises the teachings of Christianity by describing the miserable condition of Hindu widows in the nineteenth century AD.

[2] The novel portrays the story of Yamuna, the protagonist, who is a young widow in a Hindu family.

[2] As a columnist writing for Daily News and Analysis, Makarand Paranjape says, "Texts as varied as Yamuna Paryatan in Marathi and Indulekha in Malayalam championed a much more assertive position for women in the new India.

In 1979, Keshav Sitaram Karhadkar records how Baba Padmanji's critics celebrated later novels, like Lakshmanshastri Halbe's Muktamala in 1861 as the first "real" Marathi novel, criticizing the Christian feminism of Yamuna Paryatan as false-sounding and vulgar for its portrayals of widowhood and sexuality.

[5] In 2002, Rajul Sogani in her book on widowhood, called it a pioneering treatise on the suffering of widows, but it was not well received by Hindus because of its allegedly Christian nature.