Question 1: Discuss The Concept of Sthala Purana' With Reference To The Foreword To Kanthapura by Raja Rao

Name: Soumya Sharma
Roll no: 20/29030
Paper title: Indian Writing in English
Teacher’s name: Divya Mam
Date of submission: 23 July 2021
Question 1: Discuss the concept of ‘Sthala Purana’ with reference to the foreword to
Kanthapura by Raja Rao.
In Raja Rao's work, Kanthapura Raja Rao, the impact of myth is that he is a magnificent son
of mother India, and his greatness has acquired national and international attention. originates
from a south Indian Brahmin family with a long and illustrious history. He was born in the
village of Hassana in Mysore in the year 1909. He resided in France from 1908 until 1939,
then returned to India when World War II broke out in 1940. His debut novel, Kanthapura
(1938), was written thousands of miles away from India, and he was awarded the Padma
Bhushan by the Indian government in 1969. The Serpent and the Rope (1960), often regarded
as Rao's finest, is a philosophical and somewhat abstract narrative of a young intellectual
Brahman and his wife seeking spiritual truth through India, France, and England; it plays on
the Orient-Occident conversation. His other works include the allegoric The Cat and
Shakespeare: A Tale of India (1965); the communist-themed Comrade Kirillov (1976); and
the chess-themed The Chessmaster and His Moves (1988), which features characters from
diverse civilizations seeking their identities. Kanthapura (1938) by Raja Rao is the first
significant Indian novel written in English.

It's a fictionalised but accurate portrayal of how the vast majority of Indians lived their lives
under British rule and how they reacted to Indian nationalism's ideas and objectives.
Kanthapura tells the storey of an Indian village during the British Raj, focusing on Gandhi's
quest for liberation in a typical village, Kanthapura, which is based on Hardy's Wessex. The
novel is told in the guise of a sthal purana by Achakka, a village elder. Here, the author uses a
traditional Indian narrative method. 'Kanthapura' depicts the participation of a small village in
South India in Mahatma Gandhi's national movement. The villagers, imbued with
nationalism, sacrifice all of their earthly things in a triumph of the spirit, demonstrating how,
during the Gandhian movement, people were able to put aside their narrow biases and unite
in the common cause of nonviolent civil disobedience to the British Raj.
A regional book becomes a sthala-purana and a microcosm of India in Kanthapura. What's
fascinating is the novelist's creation of the world of Kanthapura, with all of it’s natural
environment, which binds the reader from the start. “There is no hamlet in India, no matter
how poor, that does not have its own sthala-puran, or mythical history. Rama may have rested
here under the pope tree, Sita may have dried her clothes after her bath on this yellow stone,
or the Mahatma himself, on one of his numerous pilgrimages through the country, maybe he
slept in this cottage by the village gate, the low one. In this way, the past and present collide,
and gods and men coexist to keep our grandmother's repertory bright. The book tried to tell
one such anecdote from village's contemporary annals.” Rather of being a standard novel
with a nice linear structure and concise plot, the work is a hybrid. KANTHAPURA follows
the Indian sthala-purana (legendary history) tradition. By the images of village and villagers,
as Raja Rao says in KANTHAPURA. Kanthapura is a microcosm of the macrocosm, because
what happened there happened all over the country during the tumultuous days of Gandhi's
liberation movement. Every town in India has a rich sthala purana or legendary history, as
Raja Rao reminds us in the first words of his well-known preface to the work. It is a Gandhi
purana or a Gandhi epic because of the novelist style or narration. Raja Rao made good use of
the mythological approach utilised so well by English writers like T.S Eliot and Joyce in
Kanthapura . The employment of legendary technique implies that the past is juxtaposed with
the present, and the past can thus function as a critique of the present. It can also be utilised to
enhance and exalt the present .The Gandhian movement, ”kanthapura,” is another and greater
attempt at constructing a sthala purana in this fashion. It contains a tale about the local
goddess Kenchamma, who protects the villagers from harm and oversees their fate. The
peasants are protected by the native deity Kenchamma "despite famine and disease, death and
despair. Ancient history, religion, figures from the epics, natural landscape, and the simple
life of the Kanthapura village community are some of the components that express the
message of nationalism. The locals engaged in Hari-Kathas. It's a traditional type of
storytelling, after all. The novel is a complete encyclopaedia of Gandhian mythology.
Religion, which is an intrinsic component of Kanthapura's culture, has been used for secular
and political purposes in Kanthapura, such as achieving independence. Religion plays a
crucial influence in establishing the identity of individuals as well as the nation.
Kanthapura is thus a fantastic regional book as well as a fascinating sthala purana. Through
the use of myth and tradition, the novelist elevates the Kanthapurians' freedom struggle to an
all-India level. The novel's framework is woven with old mythology, giving it the everlasting
aspect that all great works of art possess. He has produced a new sthala-purana, a new local
legend, by mythicizing the heroic fight and self-sacrifice of the residents of the south Indian
community. Fresh legends or sthala-purana, a new local legend, are depicted in the work. The
storey depicts how new legends, or sthala-puranas, are created, and how the mundane and
everyday takes on larger-than-life proportions in the imaginations of poets and bards, or
gossipy narrators like Achakka.

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Name: Soumya Sharma

Roll no: 20/29030

Paper title: Indian Writing in English

Teacher’s name: Divya Mam

Date of submission: 23 July 2021

Kanthapura by Raja Rao.

as Rao's finest, is a philosophical and somewhat abstract narrative of a young intellectual

significant Indian novel written in English.

in the common cause of nonviolent civil disobedience to the British Raj.

A regional book becomes a sthala-purana and a microcosm of India in Kanthapura. What's

as Raja Rao says in KANTHAPURA. Kanthapura is a microcosm of the macrocosm, because

message of nationalism. The locals engaged in Hari-Kathas. It's a traditional type of

storytelling, after all. The novel is a complete encyclopaedia of Gandhian mythology.

and political purposes in Kanthapura, such as achieving independence. Religion plays a

crucial influence in establishing the identity of individuals as well as the nation.

everyday takes on larger-than-life proportions in the imaginations of poets and bards, or

gossipy narrators like Achakka.

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