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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