Topic: Myth and reality in the novel ''Kanthapura'' by Raja Rao.
Paper: 4, Indian writing in English.
Name: Gohil Khanjaniba M.
Roll No: 17.
Semester: 1, part-1.
Year: 2013/2014.
Submitted to: Prof.Heenaba Jhala,
Department of English.
Myth and Reality in: “Kanthapura” :-
The novel rather than being traditional novel with a neat linear structure and compact plot. KANTHAPURA follows the tradition of Indian sthala- Purana or legendary history .As Raja Rao explains in KANTHAPURA by the imagery of village and villagers .Whole the text covered with myths and its reality in every human life by one or another’s activities or by their works and virtue. It may be a kind of superstition or blind faith on gods and goddesses. In other words, we can say that the study of this text we undergoes in the concept of myths or in mythical references. Their gods presented by the writer with ordinary mortals.
The writer very well uses the flash-back technique in the text, when he gives a flash back of Achakka, a wise woman in the village. When the story moves as a rider we came to know that she likes the female listeners or followers and also she addresses her followers calling them with ‘sisters’. She has survived the turbulence by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s passive resistance against British government. Achakka creates quickly creates faithful image of an Indian way of life circumscribed by tradition and indebted to its deities, of whom great and bounteous goddesses, Kenchamma the bounteous goddesses, is made the village protectors. She is presented very well in whole text, because other characters never forgot her power which was connected very well with her past life. She humanized the villagers and also heard their chants and prayers expressed by them time to time.
Raja Rao established the parameters of the story within old and new legends, which was strongly connected to the past and present life of the people. Who lived in the rural community. The story moves, with political social, religious – issues with its existence in their past and present or in their historical background.
In the book the narrator Achakka belongs to the past and present. She is just one of the many women of Kanthapura who responded the call of the Mahatma Gandhi conveyed through Moorthy. Her faith in the goddess Kenchamma, her respect for Bangamma, her affection for Murthy and her trust in him, all these feelings she shares with other woman, Achakka, mingles myth and the fact which was found in her at length through her manner of observation and reflection. Although Raja Rao has used the myth and reality artistically in the book ''Kanthapura'' through their religious background, their customs, attitudes, and also through their beliefs about the religiosity.
As Raja Rao uses the political struggle for the freedom becomes the most important part of the Good and Evil sources. Whereas, the narrative technique of the Indian oral tradition and it reflects the innovator in Indian English fiction.
The novel is the profound simplicity of classic. Raja Rao has wonderfully used the paradigm of the synthesis of the cross-cultural experience. There is to some extent we can say that he also adopts the multiculturalism or multiple religious backgrounds. In the novel ''Kanthapura'', we could observe that the people of the village set against the backdrop of a southern Indian village. It was mostly dependent on the culture and tradition. In the novel the reference of sthal-Purana refers to the legendary history of its own. The novel opens with the perspectives of the villagers, the hope of the freedom and we could say that in the past days or in the Gandhian days, people has the only aim ''to live in the freedom''.
In the novel, the Goddess Kenchamma presents the historical myths in reality which affects the present time. In other words, we can say that it depends on the past and present situation of all the human beings.
As the story reveals we found that ‘’Myth is to be defined as a complex of stories-some no doubt fact, and some fantasy –which, for various reasons, human being regard as demonstration of the inner meaning of the universe and of human life’’: according to Alan W.Watts. The rediscovery of mythology as an encyclopedia of psychological types and universal emotions simulated writers to take a new interest in the old myths, thus, making it essentially a twentieth century phenomenon. Myth and legends are the quality of timelessness.
Myth is seen manifesting itself in two ways in literature, the unconscious and conscious use of myth. There were many writers who used a mythical situation. This kind of archetypal criticism claims descent from anthropology and Jung’s theory of archetypes and racial memory. The Indian people are very close to their mythology than the modern European people are to their own lords. Raja Rao uses the mythical parallel to extend the reader’s understanding of the present situation. An Indian ethos and sensibility have attempted to traditional forms of narratives in their works. Raja Rao was the first inheritor of this tradition among Indian writers of English fiction. The representation of the puranic tradition. The method of the writer refers to the old tradition in narrative. According to Mircea Eliade: Even today people lived unconsciously but obviously by the remains of perennial mythologies. In this novel, Moorthy and Mahatma Gandhiji refers to the ‘an idealized person’ or this kind of manner, as the master position.
Whereas, in Kanthapura Jayramachar-the Harikathaman identifies Gandhi with the Prince Rama resisting the demonic rule of Ravana. Thus, as the reference shows the religious mindset of an old village people. How they think about the ‘Lord Rama’ and ‘Mahatma Gandhiji’. How they compare them to this extent. And also I would like to say that somewhere Jayramachar found some qualities in Gandhiji, which may be similar to the Lord Rama. An old grandmother or the narrator of the story known as the ‘myth-maker’. So, the interwoven with the religious things, macrocosm, microcosm, myth, social and political freedom, etc.
Another important character was Kenchamma is the local goddess who protects the village through famine and disease, death and despair. According to legend she protected the village from the attack of a terrific monster who asked their songs for food and the young women as wives –this momentous refers to the people’s unconscious mind. Thus, myths are religious rituals and all these rituals make our lives more meaningful. In other words, these allusions and extensions of metaphors are the aspects of Raja Rao’s rhetoric of fiction. In “Kanthapura” the mythological characters and contemporary figures could have become more highlighted through their ‘past and present existence.
In this book the main characters are refers to the rural community. When we came across to the novel several things has been appeared as a part of the complex to understand. Thus we have to refer background things. The various background reading is as the part of the old story telling element.
Another main and invisible character is Mahatma Gandhi, who became an inspiration to the villagers and especially Murthy, the follower of the Gandhian philosophy. Kanthapura, the plots of the book has the illusions and the village is also continues the Ramayana’s events. Moorthy’s socialistic ideas or the mythologies undergoes into the myth and reality. According to readers this book is full of symbolism. It is history and fictional narrative. The descriptive introduction of the Diwali celebration in the month of Kartik. It is vividly and imaginatively described by Raja Rao wonderfully.
After this Jayramachar narrates the story of the rebirth of Gandhi and it includes the story of the Rama and Krishna. As the story moves he introduced as a divine character, it is known as the incarnation of lord. Who comes down to the earth in the ‘great human being’ and it is a moments of great crisis. Here I would like to give an example of the myth and, ‘How it takes place in the present society’-
“In the great heavens Brahma, the self created one was lying on his serpent, when the sage Valmiki entered announced by the two doorkeepers.” - In this quotation we can see that there is the suggestion of lord Brahma and the sage Valmiki, and this reference is given in “Kanthapura”. Where in the another quotation we could see the ‘Gandhi’s birth’, the quotation is :
“…And lord! When the sage was still partaking of the pleasures Brahma offered him in hospitality, there was born in GUJARAT a son such as the world has never beheld. As soon as he came forth, the four wide walls began to shine like the kingdom of the and hardly was he in the cradle than he began to lisp the language of wisdom.”
Thus in the above paragraph we can easily see the blind observation the people of those time. Because it is a description of the birth of the father or a common human being, who creates his identity in the world with simplicity and also believed in the non-violence. But this paragraph clarifies myth of the people, not the truth of the past. There was not happened like this when Gandhi was born.
Raja Rao’s Kanthapura and R.K.Narayan’s “Waiting for the Mahatma”, the comparison between this two works is such an interesting thing because it clarifies all the doubts about the Gandhian philosophy, myth and reality. One incident which shows their myth is: Quoting Jayramachar, the old woman says, Shiva is the three eyed’, he says, ‘and Swaraj is too three eyed: self-purification, Hindu-Muslim unity and Khaddar” (pg. 14). In the individualistic novel to express the consciousness of the whole village in the collective “we” of the narrative voice of Achakka. Raja Rao himself has said that in such structures, “the past mingles with the present, and the Gods mingle with men to make the repertory of your grandmother always bright”. The Indian freedom movement of the 1920s into a reenactment of the Ravana-Sita and Rama myth and also the myth of Krishna. Raja Rao’s use of myth enables him to contain Western exploitation as a moment in illusory time where everything becomes a kind of MAYA in which ‘Hindu metaphysics has effectively phagocytosed Western invasion, Western history. This is not only an exaggeration belied by the text but also a total misunderstanding of Rao’s use of myth in the novel. He makes conscious use of myths and legends and situates the novel in historical time, not in illusory time and space.
It is in this sense Rao uses myths and mythical method because it provides a paradigm Gandhi comes as an AVATAR to destroy ‘ADHARMA or UNRIGHTEOUSNESS’ by killing the serpent of the foreign rule. In the Gandhian fiction “Kanthapura” still enjoys the central position it truly represents Gandhi and also the other side of the reality of the Gandhian myth.
Thank You.
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