Paper no 04 "Kanthapura" as a Sthala Purana.
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Semester:
MA – 1
Roll
No: 43
Paper
No:- 4 Indian Writing in English. (Pre independence)
Enrolment
No: 2069108420190031
Email
id: vidhupandya10497@gamil.com
Year:
2018 -20
Submitted
to: Department of English , Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.
Assignment's
topic: Critically analyze Kanthapura as a “Sthala Purana.”
◆ Introduction:-
Raja
Rao was an Indian writer of English Language novels & short stories,whose works
are deeply rooted in Metaphysics. He was a writer & professor also. His notable
awards was Sahitya Akademi Award (1964), Padma Bhusan(1969), Best International
Prize for Literature(1988), Padma Vibhusan(2007).
Raja
Rao's first & best – known novel Kanthapura, which was published 1938. Kanthapura
is the story of South Indian village named “Kanthapura”. The novel is narrated
is the form of a Sthala Purana by an old woman of the village, named Achakka.
Dominant castes like Brahmins are privileged to get the best region of the
village, while lower castes such as Pariahs are marginalized. Despite this class
ist system, the village retains it’s long cherished traditions of festivals in
which all castes interact & the villagers are united. The village is
believed to be protected by a local deity named Kenchamma .
◆ Regionalism Explained and Defined:-
A
regional novel is a novel which deals with the physical features, people,l
ife,customs,habits,manners,traditions,language, etc., of a particular locality.
However, this does not mean that Regionalism is mere factual reporting or
photographic reproduction. The regional artist emphasise the unique features of
a particular locality, it’s uniqueness,the various way in which it differs from
other localities. But as in all other art, so also in in regional art, there is
a constant selection and ordering of material. In other word, regional art is
also creative. Through proper selection and ordering of his material the
novelist stresses the distinctive spirit of his chosen region and shows, further,that
life in its essentials is the same everywhere. The differences are used as a
means of revealing similarities; from the particular and the local, the artist
rises to the general and the universal. The selected region becomes a symbol of
the world at large, microcosm which reflects great world beyond.
◆ A New Sthala- Purana:-
Kanthapura
is a regional novel in this larger sense. Kanthapura is a microcosm of the
macrocosm, for what happens in Kanthapura was happening all over the country during
those stirring days of the Gandhian freedom struggle. Besides, as Raja Rao
tells us in the very first sentence of his well-known Preface to the novel,
every village in India has a rich sthala- purana or legendary history. Kanthapura,
too has such a legendary history, and novelist has narrated it in detail for
the benefit of his readers. But he has also created a new sthala purana for his
region dealing with the brave struggle and self- sacrifice of the people of
Kanthapura for the sake of the freedom of their mother Bharat- mata. Thus
Kanthapura is a great regional novel as well as a sthala- purana by itself.
◆
The village and the people : Universal Elements
Kanthapura
is a regional novel, and as such we are given a detailed account of its
topography, of its crops, of its poverty, of its division into various quarters
– the Brahmin quarter, the pariah quarter etc., and of the illiteracy,
superstitions, petty rivalries and jealousies of its people. The novel is a
portrait- gallery full of the portraits of a number of living, breathing human
beings. There are both major and minor figures, and both come to life in the
hands of the novelist. As the action proceeds , his presentation of the region gains
in depth and complexity, and it is realized that Kanthapura is symbolic of a
wider and larger world, that, in short, it is a microcosm of India herself. The
picture is further enlarged and enriches by the presentation of the life of the
workers on the Skeffington Coffee Estate symbolic of the suffering of the
industrial workers under a colonial rule. Kanthapura is a great regional novel
for in it the novelist rises from the particular to the general, to the
depiction of the universal human passions, sorrows and suffering.
◆ The Local Legend: Goddess Kenchamma
Every
Village in India has its own sthala- purana or the legendary history, and
Kanthapura is no exception to this rule. It has a legend concerning the local
goddess Kenchamma who protects the villagers from harm and presides over their
destiny. We are told that Kenchamma is the mother of Himavathy, and then is
given a detailed account of its past. “ Kenchamma is our goddess, Great and
bounteous is she. She killed a demon, ages ago, a demon that had come to ask
our young sons as food and our Young women as wives. Kenchamma, came from the
Heavens – it was the sage Tripura who had made penances to bring her down – and
she wages such a battle and she fought so many a night that the blood soaked
and soaked into the earth , and that is why the Kenchamma Hill is all red. If
not ,tell me,sister, why should it be red only from the Tippur stream upwards,
for a foot down on the other side of the stream you have mud, black and brown,
but never red. Tell me, how could this happen, if it were not for Kenchamma and
her battle? Thanks heaven, not only did she slay the demon, but she even
settled down among us, and this much I shall say, never has she failed us in
our grief. If rains come not, you fall at her feet and say Kenchamma , goddess,
you are not kind to us. Our fields are full of younglings and you have given us
no water.
◆ Local Rituals
There
is also an account of a number of local rituals. “ There is a ritual of yoking
the bulls to the plough under the Rohini Star or of the traditional belief that
at the beginning of Kartik, gods can be seen passing by , “ blue gods and quite
gods and bright- eyed gods” or to the different modes of appeasing the goddess
Kenchamma. All these make up the fabric of living of which the narrator is a
part. Thus the reference to the rituals of ploughing, of worship and sacrifice,
becomes a means of establishing the atmosphere in which the villagers live, as
well as a device for concretizing the point of view, delineation of the
character of the unsophisticated narrator who can assimilate all facts into a
mythical , for whom no fact become
really significant unless it can be identified as a part of myth.”
◆ The New Sthala – Purana :
Mythicising of Local Heroism
Not
only has the novelist given us an account of legendary history of Kanthapura,
he has also created a new sthala – purana for the region. This has been done by
Mythicising the Heroism the local hearts and heads in the cause of their
motherland.
As
Northrop Fry points our in a myth ,
“ some of the chief characters are gods, other beings larger in power than
humanity.” So also in the case of the novel. Moorthy is presented as a figure
much above the common run of men. A dedicated, selfless soul, he is idealized
to the extend or being regarded as a local Mahatma. And , of course, there is
the real Mahatma also, always in the background though nowhere physically
present. The village women think of him as the Sahyadri mountain big and blue,
and Moorthy as the small mountain.
Range Gowda, the village headman, thus describes
Moorthy:
“
He is our Gandhi. The state of Mysore has a Maharaja but that Maharaja has another
Maharaja who is in London, and that one has another one in heaven, and so
everybody has his own Mahatma, and this Moorthy who has been caught in our
knees playing as a child is now grown up and great, and he has wisdom in him
and he will be our Mahatma.”
Just
as there is the local goddess Kenchamma who protects the village Kanthapura and
a greater god who protects all , Moorthy is the local avtar while Gandhi us the
greater deity. The Harikatha man rises Gandhi to the level of a god by
identifying his activities with one particular feet of Krishna, though it does
not always mean fidelity to facts.
◆ Mythicising of Facts: It’s
Advantages
“This
Mythicising facts serves a two fold purpose in Kanthapura. It’s narrator is an
old illiterate woman, and mingling of myth and fact would be her natural manner
of observation and reflection. Thus, it is a device of characterization.
Secondly,
Raja Rao adheres to the Indian classical tradition by idealizing and Mythicising
the central character. Moorthy is an idealized character, who, like Christ,
takes all the sins of the people upon himself and undergoes a penance for
purification, a young man who conquers physical desire and self interest. Indeed, in the context of modern European
realistic tradition, he will appear unreal as a character. A myth necessarily
deals with an idealized man or a man larger than life and Raja Rao uses the
devise Of Mythicising facts in order to give his hero that exalted status”.
◆ Conclusion
To
conclude this question – Kanthapura is a great regional novel, as well as an
interesting sthala- purana. The novelist rises from the particular to the
general and by the use of myth and legend gives to the freedom struggle of the
Kanthapurians an all India character. The weaving of ancient myths into the
structure of the novel, gives to it the quality of timelessness which all great
works of art have. By Mythicising the heroic- struggle and self sacrifice of
the people of the South Indian Village, he has created a new sthala- purana, a
new local legend. The novel illustrates how new legends or sthala- purana are
made, how the ordinartand the commonplace acquires larger than life dimensions in
the imagination of poets and bards , or gossipy narrators like Achakka.
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