Mythological stories and folktales that have been around since ancient times are constantly evolving. They are a part of our oral storytelling tradition, and every storyteller tells it differently, infusing it with the cultural milieu, social and religious practices and his/her own world-view. This means that the same stories necessarily change over times and geographies, even if infinitesimally every time. This, for eg., accounts for vast differences between the Ramayana of Valmiki, the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas and the Indonesian version which has been derived from the Kamba Ramayanam of South India taken there by people who migrated there in the 8th century AD from Srilanka.
A notable example of different tellings of a mythological story is that of Shakuntala. Any self-respecting book reader will swear by the story immortalised by Kalidasa in his Abhijnaanashakuntalam. Shakuntala’s existence is forgotten by Dushyant on account of a curse by Durvasa rishi as she had been daydreaming about her husband when she should have been hastening to attend to Durvasa who is a guest. When she pleads with the seer to take back his curse, he tells her that if she can produce a token given by her husband in front of him, he would remember her. Then follows the whole story of the loss of the ring (careless woman!) and the serendipitous producing of it by the fisherfolk in the court after Dushyant has denied recognising Shakuntala as his wife in public.
I, too, believed in this version of the Shakuntalam till quite recently. The genius of Kalidasa and the beauty of his rendering ensured that the world believed it to be the real version. Far from it. It was merely the more popular version, that even little children learn (unfortunately!), thanks mainly to ACKs.
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| pic courtesy flipkart |
In his book, he speaks about the various women characters in the epic, known and relatively unknown. The chapter on Shakuntala made me sit up and take notice of the fact that Kalidasa had redefined the term ‘poetic licence’ drastically. Searching more for the original version, I found it again in Ashok Banker’s The Forest of Stories and a few online versions of the truth like this one.
In the original, there is no Durvasa-Ring episode. When Dushyanta disowns Shakuntala publicly, she berates him, and teaches him a few essential things about the Truth and Dharma. In the process, she comes across as intelligent, dignified and resourceful even under the grief of her husband’s denial of their marriage. Dushyant comes across as weak-willed coward, who was more worried about his image if he admitted to an impulsive marriage in a faraway hermitage. Of course, as it is mythology, he ‘accepts’ her after a convenient akashvani proclaims Shakuntala to be telling the truth!
Kalidasa’s Abhijnaanashakuntalam is a beautifully written love story. However, he had adapted the original tale of Shakuntala, infusing it with the beliefs and social mores of the times: the 4th century AD. The status of women was at a low as a direct result of the Manusmriti written a few centuries earlier. And of course, the hero of a romantic tale could do no wrong. How is Dushyanta to be blamed for his behaviour if he was a victim to a curse? In this, Kalidasa's genius has done women a disservice, as following generations have till today believed in his version rather than the original. Unfortunately, this is something that will shadow many such originals, as Sanskrit no longer remains a living language, and there will be fewer people who can study our original works.
This is my entry for Tulika's "Celebrating Our Myths" blogfest.
7 comments:
Food for thought - possibly a lot of what was written has been conviniently misinterpreted through the ages. Somehow feel the ancient folks were more liberal than what they are thought to be.
Nice work dude, as usual.
Gosh! How could someone twist a story like that..
But honestly, most of our stories always seem to show the women folk in poor light...even if the woman is someone strong...
this is a very very interesting take eh?
Wow this is quiet a great read. History always gives rise to curiosity and as we explore into it, it has more and more connections.
Have you read palace of illusions by chitra banerjee divakaruni. It's Mahabharata seen through paanchali's point of view. It's a very unlikely point of view but maybe true somewhere in it's time. As they say history is written by winners.
I came across another book called the asura by anand neelakantan. It's as the book says ravanayana :) we have always read Ramayana n how Rama is always the good one. But asura is all about ravana.These books maybe fictional but you never know they might have had their manuscripts which may have been ignored.
Congrats Sandhya on winning the entry. I loved your vast database on books that has brought out the unknown, unheard and unseen angle to the Shakuntala episode
I am glad I stumbled on to your blog. Its bookmarked from my end :)
Thanks, Choxie, RM. Yes, most myths, being part of an oral tradition, must have evolved a lot from the original. The insertions are logically those relevant to the social milieu at the time. Some have enriched our myths, some have given them unwanted twists. As Padmini here has rightly pointed out, history is written by the winners, and here, the top-dog. So although many myths with all the magical things may be works of fiction, they give us unerring pointers to how society must have been at a point in time.
Unfortunately, these inserts get entrenched and then accepted as 'OUR CULTURE' that gets then set in stone, and therein lies the problem.
@Padmini: Thanks, and welcome to my space. I haven't yet read the two books you have mentioned, but they are both on my 'to read' list. Currently reading the Ramayana series by Ashok Banker, who, I must say, has put in quite a few inserts of his own, although he has stood by the original stories in the now upcoming serialised Mahabharatha.
@Rathina: Thanks, and welcome to my space. I read your entry too, and it was an excellent read. Learnt a few new things. Congrats.
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