Samskara - U R Ananthamurthy

U.R. ANANTHAMURTHY’S

SAMSKARA – A QUESTION OF MORAL CONDUCT

U.R. Ananthamurthy’s Samskara is an important Novel of the sixties and also made into controversial yet award-winning Kannada film in 1970. It is translated into English by A.K. Ramanujan in 1976 with a sub-title A Rite for a Dead Man. This religious novel, rich in allegory and symbolism, deals with decaying brahmin colony (agrahara) in Karnataka village in a realistic detail. All the characters of the novel are allegorical, but the setting is realistic. It is an abstract human theme is reincarnated in just enough particulars of a space, a time, a society. Though the name of the village Durvasapura is allegoric, named after Durvasa, the angry sage. But all the near by villages and cities like Shivamogge, Barsur, Agumbe, Thirthahalli, Kundapura, Dharmasthala, Udipi etc., are real places on the geographical map of Karnataka. The references to older coins (annas), ahe popualr Kannada Daily Tayinadu, the rise of the congress party are the several details suggest that the time of action could be the early 30’s or 40’s.

The title Samskara refers to a concept central to Hinduism. This multi vocal Sanskrit word samskara gives multiple meanings like, according to Kittel’s Kannada-English Dictionary A Rite of Passage or life cycle ceremony, in other words forming well, making perfect, the realizing of the past perceptions, or Funeral Obsequies etc., are a few to note. The Sub title of this English translated version, is the most concrete of these many concentric senses that spread through the whole work. A rite for a Dead Man

The Opening event of the novel Smaskara is a death of an anti-brahminical brahmin called Naranappa. Belongs to Hedonist School he revolted against the prevailing traditions and customs. In life as in death he questioned orthodox brahmins and their brahminya, and exposed their hallowness of samskara. He lived a life of complete libertine in the heart of exclusive orthodox brahmin agrahara. He spoke every known taboo. He drank liquor, ate animal flesh, caught fish with his Muslim friends in the holy temple-tank, and even lived with a low-caste woman, Chandri. He had cast off his water-washed holy stone (saligram) in the presence of other brahmins and negelected his lawfully-wedded brahmin wife, and antagonised his kins; Garudacharya and Laxamanacharya. He lived defiantly in their midst protected fully by a modern secular laws.

Naranappa often attacks strait-laced village brahmins who regularly attend to the ‘rituals’ (samskaras), but have not earned by any means of their merit of ‘refinement of spirit’ (samskara). According to him they are all greedy, gluttonous, mean-spirited, love for gold, betray orphans and widows; and also jealous of his (Naranappa’s) every forbidden pleasure. Further Naranappa’s mischief reveals in mythological reminders in an encounter with Praneshacharya, a spiritual guide of agrahara in defiance of his own way of life, so sarcastically as:

“Didn’t Parashara the ascetic put a cloud on the holy Ganges as the fisher woman ferried him across, take her in the boat, bless her body with perpetual fragrance. Out of their union the sage and fishwife, came vyasa, the seer, and compiler of the Vedas and epic poet of Mahabharata. Didn’t Vishvamitra the warrior-sage succumb to the celestial Menaka and lose all accumulated powers? He once ate even dog-meat to survive a famine and became the proverbial example of emergency ethics (appaddharama). And didn’t Shankara, celibate philosopher, use his yogic powers to enter a dead king’s body, to experience sex, to qualify for a debate on the subject with a woman.”

Now Naranappa is dead. He died in the wake of plague. It is the right time for all superficial brahmins to punish him in his death. They could punish him at least in death by disowning him. But the ire of brahmins against Naranappa is dramatically changed when Chandri prepared to offer her gold jewelry for the expenses of the samskara of dead Naranappa. On looking the heap of gold Laxmanacharya and Garudacharya picked a quarrel up in claiming the rights for performing rites. But the fear of possible imposition of ex-communication of the community from Dharmasthala Monastery on the people whosoever may take hasty decision, is prevented them.

At this juncture the novel Samskara raises many fundamental double-edged questions in Hindu form like—was Naranappa a brahmin enough in life to be treated as one in death? Did he have the necessary ‘preparation’ (samskara) to deserve a proper ‘ceremony’ (samaskara)? Once a brahmin always a brahmin? On this hour of crisis the whole community of brahmins was thrown into dilemma apart from their mocking anti-self.

Praneshacharya, the protagonist of the novel, the crest jewel of vedic learning of Kasi, custodian and spiritual guide of brahmanya of agrahara, whose name and fame is far and wide, contemplates on the question of samskara of dead Naranappa. Praneshacharya is exactly of opposite number of Naranappa, who led his life as ascetic. He, who had turned even his marriage into penance. He immolated himself by marrying an invalid. Serving Bhagirathi, his wife, is an altar for him for purification of his soul. The real problem begins when all brahmins turned to him to seek a right advice. Ironically, in the very act of seeking the answers in the Books, and later in seeking a sign from Maruthi, a chaste monkey-god, Acharya abandons everything. He abandons everything by an illicit deed. Exactly on this hour of crisis when he returns from Maruthi temple he meets Chandri on the way in the forest of the night, and sleeps with her contrary to all his ‘preparation’ (samaskara). He sleeps with her while the dead body of Naranappa is still waiting for the cremation.

His sudden sexual experience with the forbidden Chandri becomes an unorthodox ‘A rite of initiation’. So the questions arise within him are – who is a brahmin? How is he made? Brahmin by birth as by ‘samskara’ (in its many senses)? Through a breach in the old ‘formations’, he begins to transform himself with the rightness of paradox. This initiation of transformation through an illicit deed, a misdeed, totally counter to his past. He participates in the condition of Naranappa through Naranappa’s own handpicked whore.

All the battles of tradition and defiance, asceticism and sensuality, the meaning and meaningless of ritual, dharma as nature and law, desire (kama) and salvation (moksha), have now become internal psychological exploration to Praneshacharya.  The arena shifts from a Hindu village community to the body and the spirit of the protagonist. Meanwhile, the physical problem of the body’s disposal has ironically ceased to the relevance. The body is simply, unceremoniously carried in a cart and burned in a field by Chandri and  her Muslim friend, though the Acharya does not know about it.

Praneshacharya’s brahminism questions itself within him in modern existentialist mode. The questioning leads him into new and ordinary worlds. He wanders through forests and lonely roads after the death of his wife by plague. In this state of confusion he meets Putta. Putta is a denizen of this world. He is a riddle master, expert bargainer, pimp without any samskara. Even Naranappa has an ideology in life but Putta has none. He confesses that he is the illegitimate son of a malera mother and a brahmin father. In the guided tour Putta takes Acharya through a non-verbal world of fairs, temple-festivals, cockfights, whorehouse and pawnshop. Acharya feels the experience of demoniac world of passion and sensation.

Parnaeshacharya wonders that there is no seriousness in Naranappa’s mockery and sensuality. According to him sacrilege is not a ‘left-handed’ way of attaining the sacred. Salvation is also possible through intoxication as by self-discipline. The Lord may even be reached sooner through hate than by devotion.

Praneshacharya himself remembers out of his past, in Benaras, another Naranappa-like figure, fellow-pupil, Mahabala, who denounced the ‘strait and narrow’ path of Sanskrit learning and found ‘reality’ in the embrace of a whore in the holy city itself.

Indeed, the story of the novel moves very much like a ‘rite de passage’. It is well known the many types of rituals, especially rite of initiation, have three stages: ‘separation’, transition’ and

‘re-incorporation’. Through these rituals individuals attain their status or state. This change of state is symbolized in Acharya’s initiation. Putta initiates him into mysteries of the world to undergo a ‘rite de passage’. All these experiences give him the vision of this world is part of the Acharya’s new ‘samskara’, his ‘passage’.

Thus the Samskara is not only the subject of the work but the form as well. Acharya moves through the three stages—though we see him not entirely into the third stage, but only on its threshold. He realised with all his experiences of odds and sods that humanity is greater than religion and its dogma. First time he hugged Putta though he is an untouchable and started to his village, Durvasapura, with the intention of performing samskara to dead Naranappa. There the Novel ends.

Finally, to sum up, one could reasonably take the view that this novel is really presenting a decadent Hinduism and too many questions of moral conduct, through the career of a limited hero, capable of only arcs, not full circles. As earlier said, the last phase of Achary’s initiation is an anxious return, awaiting in the threshold, seems his questions find no restful answers. What is suggested is movement not a closure. The novel ends, but does not conclude.

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