Q: Use of myth in Kantapura

Or, Kantapura as a sthala purana.

Ans- Kanthapura a regional novel expands into a sthala-purana and microcosm of India. What is interesting is the world of
kanthapura that the novelist creates with all its natural setting. The novelist glues the reader right from the beginning. In the
foreword of the novel Rao describes that every village has its own sthalauran:

There is no village in India, however mean, that has not a rich sthala- purana, or legendary history, of its own. some God or
godlike hero has passed by the village Rama might have rested here under the papal tree, Sita might have dried her clothes, after
her bath, o this yellow stone, or the Mahatma himself, on one of his many pilgrimages through the country, might have slept in
this hut, the low one, by the village gate. In this way the past mingles with the present, and gods mingle with men to make the
repertory of our grandmother always bright. One such story from the contemporary annals of my village I have tried to tell.
(kanthapura 5)

The novel rather than being traditional novel with a neat linear structure and compact plot, it follows the tradition of
Indian sthala-purana or legendary history. As Raja Rao explains in Kantapura by the imagery of village and villagers, it is a
microcosm of the macrocosm, for what happens in Kanthapura was happening all over the country during those stirring days
of the Gandhian freedom struggle.

In kanthapura Raja Rao made an effective use of the mythical technique used with such success by English
writers like T.S Eliot and Joyce. The use of mythical technique means that the past is juxtaposed with the present an in his way
the past may serve as criticism of the present, or it may be used heighten and glorify the present. In his waste land T.S.Eliot has
used the mythical technique to criticize the present and in Kanthapura Raja Rao has used this very technique to glorify the
present and impart to the novel the dignity and status of an epic or purana. It is in this way that the Gandhian movement.
Kanthapura is again another and a larger attempt at creating a sthala purana.

As raja rao tells us in the very first sentence of his well known preface of the novel, every village in India has a rich sthala
purana or legendary history. It has a legend concerning the local goddess kenchamma who protects the villagers from harm
and presides over their destiny. The novelist style or narration makes it a Gandhi purana or a Gandhi epic.

Rao depicts the regular involvement of the villagers in Sankara-Jayanthi, Kartik Purnima, Ganesh-Jayanthi, Dasara,
and the Satyanarayana Puja with the intention of conveying a sense of the natural unity and cohesion of village society. Old
Ramakrishnayya reads out the Sankara-Vijaya day after day and the villagers discuss Vedanta with him every afternoon.
Religion, imparted through discourses and pujas (prayers), keeps alive in the natives a sense of the presence of God.
Participation in a festival brings about the solidarity among them. The local deity Kenchamma protects the villagers "through
famine and disease, death and despair". If the rains fail, you fall at her feet. Equally sacred is the river Himavathy which flows
near Kanthapura.

The novel Kanthapura takes us to the world of history of Hindu. We also experienced the Hindu epics and also
come across the Hindu thoughts. The novel has also developed its mythic and symbolic framework. We find some elements
whish shows the message of Nationalism that were ancient history, religion, characters from the epics, natural landscape and
simple life of the village community of Kanthapura. Hari-Kathas was practiced by the villagers. As it is a traditional form of
storytelling. Hari-Kathas are the story of God. Jayramchar was Hari-Katha man who narrated Hari-Katha based on Gandhi and
his ideals. Afterwards he was arrested because of the political propaganda installed in the story.

Gandhis character was portrayed as a heros like Ram, Krishna, Shiva in the novel Kanthapura. The novel defines
Gandhi as a divine rebirth of Shiva. Kanthapura emerges to be a laboratory of the Gandhian thought and theory. The novel is a
veritable grammar of the Gandhian myth. In Kanthapura, religion, an integral part of culture has been used for a secular and
political purpose such as attaining Independence. Here religion has got a very significant role to play in defining the identity of
people and also of the nation.

Raja Raos use of myth enables him to contain Western exploitation as a moment in illusory time where everything
becomes a kind of MAYA in which Hindu metaphysics has effectively phagocytosed Western invasion, Western history. This is
not only an exaggeration belied by the text but also a total misunderstanding of Raos use of myth in the novel. He makes
conscious use of myths and legends and situates the novel in historical time, not in illusory time and space. It is in this sense Rao
uses myths and mythical method because it provides a paradigm Gandhi comes as an AVATAR to destroy ADHARMA or
UNRIGHTEOUSNESS by killing the serpent of the foreign rule. In the Gandhian fiction Kanthapura still enjoys the central
position it truly represents Gandhi and also the other side of the reality of the Gandhian myth.

Thus, Kanthapura is a great regional novel, as well as an interesting sthala purana. The novelist rises from the particular to the
general by the use of myth and legend gives to the freedom struggle of the kanthapurians an all India character. The weaving of
ancient myths into the structure of the novel, gives it the quality of timelessness which all great works of art have. By mythic
sing of the heroic- struggle and self-sacrifice of the people of the south Indian village, he has created a new sthala-purana,a
new local legend. The novel illustrates how new legends or sthala-puranas are made , how the ordinary and the commonplace
acquires larger than life dimensions in the imagination of poets and bards, or gossipy narrators like Achakka.