Mythology and Modern Indian Nepali Literature

                                             Manprasad Subba

Mythology and literature have ever been in a deep relation with each other. The former has always influenced the latter in one way or the other and it has ever been retold with endlessly newer and newer significance in the literature of every age. In this context my paper will focus on the modern Indian Nepali literature.  

     Prior to embarking on the subject, I would first like to put forward a brief introductory note on the anthropological composition of Nepali community as a whole in relevance to the various sources of mythological stories closely or ancestrally related to this race or community. Nepali speaking people as a nation or community is a confluence of two distinct anthropological streams – one, Aryan and the other, Mongoloid. They differ in their physical builds and facial features: the former being generally taller with high nose on oval face while the latter relatively short and stocky with somewhat flattish nose and small slit eyes on roundish face. Most of the Nepalis of Aryan origin are of Hindu faith and many of those Mongoloid, who can be studied as different ethnic groups, have their own respective animistic beliefs. A few of these groups also follow Tibetan Buddhism. But practice of shamanism is common in the people of both the streams which, after being merged in a confluence centuries ago, have been flowing as one river of one community. This is why the Hindu culture in Nepali society looks quite different from that of the mainstream Indians. Many Hindu cultural festivals and rituals have evolved into distinctly different meanings, different forms and colours that have become some identifying aspects of Nepali ethnic groups.

     Having said this, what I would now like to point out is that the socio-cultural-political nature of Nepali speaking Indians is very much different from that of their counterpart in Nepal. Nepali speaking Indians consider themselves as one single ethnic group with one language which is Nepali and one culture called Nepali culture composed of the assimilation of Hindu, Buddhist and various sub-ethnic animistic faiths. And it is this cultural whole from where our poets and authors have copiously drawn the symbols and images for their writings.  

     Inexhaustible stories and characters of great Hindu epics like the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and other scriptures like the Vedas and Puranas along with some other ethnic myths have ever been the source of great inspiration to our poets, playwrights and fiction writers. While the mythological stories of ancient Indian tradition and antiquity have always been in use in their different forms and shapes, ethnic myths seem to have made their ways into creative writings mostly only in modern period. Nowadays, in contemporary Nepali poetry, plays and short-stories we can see different kinds of ethnic myths used as allusions and imageries. Modernist writings in the sixties and seventies brought also a lot of Greek and Roman myths into Nepali poetry and essays. As Christianity has made its strong presence visible in the Darjeeling Hills since long, biblical myths are also quite familiar to the Nepali speaking Indians in this region. Moreover, the three hill towns of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong being the summer and health resorts of British in the colonial era, have been associated with English education established by the Western Christian missionaries since mid-nineteenth century. As such, it is only natural that the biblical myths are often seen rubbing their shoulders with other native traditional and ethnic myths in Indian Nepali literature.

      Mythological stories have always worked as powerful mediums or materials for the poets and authors to give definite and effective shape to their creative ideas. If we go with Carl Gustav Jung, myths of a particular community or ethnic group are their collective unconscious that sometimes gives vent to itself in one form or other in some creative works of the community or group concerned. But according to Northrop Frye, a proponent of Archetypal literary theory, the totality of literary works constitute a “self-contained literary universe” which has been created over the ages by the human imagination so as to incorporate the alien and indifferent world of nature into persisting archetypal forms that serve to satisfy enduring human desires and needs.  

     So far as the use of mythology in the modern Indian Nepali literature is concerned, it is evident that most of the poets, playwrights and fiction writers have freely drawn more from the Ramayana and Mahabharata than any other mythological stories. The Ramayana was made widely popular among the common Nepali folks by the poet Bhanubhakta Acharya (1814) who translated, rather transcreated, from the Sanskrit Adhyatma Ramayana into the lucid and flowing Nepali language that made the common mass sway with its varieties of rhythmic metrical verses which they sang at home, in the social gatherings, in the fields and their other workplaces. Moreover, it had become a custom to read or recite Ramayana in typical varying tunes as demanded by its metres in those Nepali houses during a certain mourning period caused by the occurrence of death. And the Nepali people thus had found the Nepali Ramayana with Nepali Rama and Sita, Nepali Lakshmana and Bharata and all other characters who spoke Nepali language in the same manner as the common folks then did. This is how the characters of the Ramayana got deeply ingrained into the Nepali ethos. The Nepali translation of the Mahabharata followed much later although the story of Krishna, Kaurava and Pandava was not that unfamiliar in Nepali society at large. In fact, the impact of the latter seems to be much stronger on the Nepali minds which may be the reason that its various episodes and characters are frequently seen or heard in their never-ending newer forms and voices in Nepali literature.

     One such important literary work in Indian Nepali literature is Karna-Kunti (1988), a semi epic poem by Tulasi Bahadur Chhetri ‘Apatan’. As the title of the book amply suggests, this semi-epic poem depicts not only the predicament of the two protagonists whose roles in the Mahabharata are of great significance, but their innermost feelings and emotions are also movingly brought out into sharp relief. Running through two thousand and two hundred lines, the poem has vividly shown the psychological conflicts in the mind of Kunti as a mother of Karna and the conscience of her motherhood speaks louder than the fear of the accusations of the world at large. In the second section of the poem, the poet’s delineation of Karna’s feeling of overwhelming love for his newly introduced mother and his subsequent unbending criticism of Kunti’s fear for the society is moving, indeed. What the poet Chhetri has explored in this poem is the rebellious consciousness in the character of Karna. He speaks fearlessly against the oppression, prejudice and hypocrisy of the society. I cannot resist the temptation of quoting a few lines spoken by Karna to his mother:

    

     In vain you were afraid as a meek

     But afraid of whom? Of whom?

     Of this society?

     Of this picture-tiger?

     Of its lifeless boasting?

     Written in flowing free verse, Karna-Kunti makes the reader flow in the effortless rhythm of the poem while arousing in him / her sufficient sensibilities towards the human follies and flaws.     

    

     The next book I have chosen for a special mention in this paper is a book of two plays titled Ashwatthama Hato Hatah by Avinash Shreshtha, an acclaimed poet and playwright of modern and contemporary trends. The first play is titled Samaya, Samaya, ani Samaya and the title of the second play is the title of the book. The first play was written in 1982 and the second one is dated 1984 when Avinash Shreshtha still lived in Guwahati, Assam, his birthplace. Experimentalist in his approach, Shreshtha has drawn the mythical characters from the Rig Veda and the Mahabharata on the one hand and a few other characters from modern history and present-day life on the other hand. He has not only used the mythological characters along with those from history and day-to-day life but he has also used Time as a main character in the play. The interplay of these characters from different spheres creates fantasy that ironically exposes absurdity and grotesque reality of modern life. That it is man who has saved and saves Time whenever it falters is the significant message we get from this play.

     In Ashwatthama Hato Hatah a Mahabharata character Ashwatthama is the protagonist and round him revolve other characters from the same epic with their new names attributive of their respective characteristics: Krishna as a dalal (broker/ middleman), Dronacharya as an intellectual, Duryodhana an industrialist, Yudhishthira the Truth, Vikarna a peasant and Draupadi as a temptation / consolation. Ashwatthama in this play represents a poor peasant, a cursed human being, ever in search of humanity, symbolizing universal human adversity. Both the plays can be called aesthetic documentations of human devaluation occurred in the wheel of Time.

    

     Sharad Chhetri is another noteworthy name who has abundantly used the Hindu mythological characters in his short-stories and poetry. In his semi-epic poem entitled Mahanisha, meaning darkest of the dark nights, reader finds several characters from the Mahabharata employed as symbols through which the poet paints the grim picture of the present-day world. Blind Dhritarashtra and blindfolded Gandhari as heads of nation are the symbols of absurdity breeding anarchy. The poet recurrently invokes God the Almighty who is none but Time, omnipotent, omnipresent and absolutely indifferent. Chhetri has used the mythological characters in many of his short-stories as well.

     Amala Subba, a newly emerged woman playwright, has come up with her two lyrical plays titled Teesta-Rangit and Kelaang, taking a departure from her predecessors. Both the plays are based on the mythical stories popular in two different tribal and ethnic groups called Lepcha and Limbu respectively. Myth of the Teesta-Rangit is associated with Lepcha, an ancient tribe inhabiting mostly Sikkim and sparsely the Darjeeling Hills. The Teesta and the Rangit are the names of two rivers originating from the mount Kanchenjunga at different places in the state of Sikkim and flow down south forming a beautiful confluence at a point right below Peshok (Pojok) in the eastern flank of Darjeeling sub-division. According to Lepcha mythology Teesta (female) and Rangit (male) were created by Itabu-Debu Rum, the goddess of creation. The two deeply fall in love. And, one day, they make up their mind to leave the Kanchenjunga and meet at Pojok. The Teesta proposes for a competition of race between the two: whoever of the two reaches the rendezvous earlier will be crowned as victorious. And they, in their respective journey, are guided by Tut Fo, the Lord of birds, and Paril Bu, the Lord of snakes, respectively. Under the guidance of Paril Bu the Teesta reaches Pojok earlier and even advances a little farther but the Rangit, stopping here and there urged by the Bird-king to enjoy the beauty of nature loses the race and becomes so upset, with his masculine vanity bruised, that he finds it very hard to accept defeat. However, the sweet words of Teesta pacify him and they move forward together as one for their journey ahead.

     The second lyrical play Kelaang is a story from the Mundhum, the ethnic scripture of Limbu, a major tribal group in the larger Nepali ethnic society. The story is a symbolic depiction of the conflict between beast named Kesami the Tiger and man, Namsami, both born of Tigenjongna. As the beast grows, it constantly becomes a serious threat to Namsami as well as to mother Tigenjongna. One day in the final battle between the two the beast is trickily killed with an arrow shot from the top of a simul tree. And later, Namsami makes Ke (also called chyabrung), a kind of drum, with the hide of the tiger stretched and fixed on two ends of a hollowed log. This Limbu myth obviously symbolizes the conflicting forces of good and evil inherent in human being.

     Amala Subba has proved her potential in bringing these mythical characters alive in both of her plays.

     This story, in its many shades and episodes, is quite popularly used in Nepali poetry. There are many more ethnic myths which are being brought into poetry and plays by the poets. However, use of such myths being not widely known often needs footnotes, of course. But frequent and refreshing use of them will surely gain currency among the readers. In fact, ethnic myths hitherto marginalized and overshadowed by the mainstream culture or more powerful cultures that might have even rendered the writers from the ethnic societies reticent and hesitant in using their own ethnic images, have nowadays made their presence felt in creative writings, especially poetry. The postcolonial consciousness has opened the horizon; grand narrative has given way to little narratives and the age-old canon of the aesthetic sense has let the doors of multicultural aestheticism flung open. And those pushed to the dark corners have also come out into the light to claim their due spaces in literatures, in other forms of art and in history.  

     By the way, one more female dramatist who richly deserves mention here is Indramani Darnal. All three books of dramas she has published so far are populated by the characters from the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Her latest work Krishnaa! Krishnaa!! (2009) stages almost all the major characters of the Mahabharata. Exploring the gaps in some perspectives put forth by the text of the great epic, Darnal has recreated the character of Draupadi who is strong and bold enough to hurl the feministic questions straight at those elders to whom all others usually bowed down with utmost reverence. Feminist voice is heard loud and clear in most of her plays.    

     There are scores of modern and contemporary poets in Indian Nepali literature who have created fresh imageries with the characters from the ancient scriptures – mainstream Indian and those on the fringe alike. Even a few lines from each of them may occupy considerably much space which this short paper cannot afford, of course.  

    

     Uses of outlandish myths like that of Greek, Roman and Egyptian stayed a little over than a decade from mid-sixties to the end of seventies in Indian Nepali poetry. It is, indeed, the familiar myths with the smell of native soil that have eternally attracted our poets and artists who keep retelling them in never-ending fresh forms and voices. Myths never die, but keep emerging afresh with every successive generation. Myths are in our subconscious; we may forget them but they never forget us. They keep haunting us in one way or other.

    

     India as a land of multi-language and multi-culture is exceedingly rich in her treasure of mythologies which are and will ever be the source of great inspiration to all the creative minds.

Bijanbari, Darjeeling

30 November, 2016.