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Odiya Literary Culture in The World Traditions Flipbook PDF
Vol.-I Number 2 Winter July-December 2009 Journal of Literature, Culture and Media Studies Vol.-I Number 2 Winter July-D
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Odiya Literary Culture in The World Traditions
Sarala Das and the phenomenal Sarala Mahabharata as also the literary culture of 15th century Odisha remain relatively less- known than the three other authors named above and their culture.
G K DAS*
One should recognize the fact, however, that historical neglect notwithstanding, Odiya literary culture has remained a significant part of the multifarious world cultural heritage. There are some basic reasons why the Sarala Mahabharata has remained less- known in Europe, or the Anglo-American world, than Homer, Dante or Shakespeare’s works, or even Kalidas’s work, for that matter. Vyasa’s Mahabharata, which was Sarala Das’s original source, and the Valmiki Ramayana, or Kalidas’s Meghaduta, have been available in English translation for many years, like the Iliad, Odyssey, Divine Comedy, or Hamlet; while a complete translation of the Sarala Mahabharata into English has not yet been made. Only through discussions of it in encyclopedias, a handful of histories of Odiya literature (written in English), and some critical articles in journals in English, readers abroad have come to know of it. This limitation apart, it is also true that as Odisha remained under colonial rule for hundreds of years, the richness of Odiya literary culture hardly had a good chance to come to limelight. A third point is that the people of the State were not so widely travelled in the West in the past, which is why there was not much cultural exchange with the Western world.
The literary culture of any region or nation is shaped by its literature, oral and written. It may be limited to a specific location, but the literature on which it is grounded has no frontiers. No literature, writer or literary text is limited to a local context, or culture. A literary artifact or author worth the name has a universal status. Homer, Dante, Sarala Das, Shakespeare, Fakir Mohan Senapati, Rabindranath Thakur, Kuntala Kumari Sabat, or Basant Kumari Patnaik is a world author. That is not just a contemporary viewpoint; Marx also thought so. According to him, “The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National onesidedness and narrowmindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures there arises a world literature.” With the emergence of a global view in the postcolonial ethos, the contemporary reader is more than ever inclined, to take such an enlightened view of all literatures of the world. With the above basic premise let us look at some aspects of Odiya literary culture, authors and their works in the broader context of the world traditions. In view of the infinitely vast treasures of world literary cultures, our consideration can only be illustrative, not exhaustive. We begin with a discussion of Odiya literary culture in its early phase, in relation to the contemporaneous world cultural situation, through the work of some flag-bearers of ancient literary culture: Homer, Dante, Sarala Das and Shakespeare, for instance. Each one of these authors was a genius. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Sarala Das’s Mahabharata, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet are monumental writings on the human situation in a complex social, political and cultural ambience that is an integral part of a universal scenario. The dimensions and intensity of each author’s engagement with life—seen and unseen— are similar, as are the values that their works represent. It is only a historical accident that * Retired Professor, The University of Delhi & Former Vice-Chancellor, Utkal University, Bhubneshwar.
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Let us briefly look at the great merit of the Sarala Mahabharata, an all-time epitome of Odiya literary culture. Composed in the 15th century, prior to the date of Shakespeare’s plays or poems, the Sarala Mahabharata is a free and highly innovative rendering of the Sanskrit original. It is larger in length than Vyasa’s Mahabharata, and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey taken together. Its ingenious narration of the legendary war between the Pandavas and Kauravas is reminiscent of Homer’s narration of the story of the Trojan War and its aftermath in the Iliad and Odyssey. Just as Homer’s epics are a magnificent reflection of the cuture of ancient Greece, Sarala’s Mahabharata eminently mirrors the complex variety of Odiya culture of his time. Its analytical exposition of the notions of virtue and sin, and of the moral predicament of humans too is as penetrating as Homer’s, or as Dante’s in the Divine Comedy. More significantly, it is an illustration of how close literary culture can be to the socio-political culture of an age. Vol.-I Number 2
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The Sarala Mahabharata depicts the heterogeneity of contemporary Odisha’s feudal culture, the caste-ridden social life, the economic indigence of the masses of working class people, their great appetite for literary culture, and their keen adherence to a religious faith of one kind or another. There was an astounding congregation of diverse religions in Odisha at that time: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Vaisnavism, the supremely syncretic Jagannath Dharma, Polytheism etc., which was a situation unheard of in theological history. The literary culture of Odisha then was the most eclectic channel that took religion to the doorstep of common people; and the Sarala Mahabharata was their acknowledged fountainhead of inspiration. Sarala Das owns in humility that he was a ‘Sudra’(of the farming caste) and ‘apandit’ (un-learned). But he was uniquely self-taught. Like Dante, he was a fearless revolutionary. Dante was an exile from his native land Florence; Sarala likewise was an outcaste as it were, in a class society. As Dante wrote the Divine Comedy in Florentine vernacular keeping in mind the interest of his native people, Sarala chose to write the Mahabharata in Odiya, protesting the hegemony of the Sanskrit language and of the Brahmins, so that masses of common people might have access to ‘sacred’ texts/ knowledge. His epic became a narrative of the people and for the people, as was Homer’s narrative a popular national saga of the ancient Greeks. It may be remembered that the philosophical/ethical question that Achilles in the Iliad and Odysseus in the Odyssey have to resolve is whether they would choose common life on the earth or godly life of fame in heaven; and they both choose earthly life in preference to the heavenly. A similar moral dilemma is at the centre of Sarala Das’s work also. Divine personages are humanized in his narrative; and the author’s deep concern for fellow humans, his adoration of the human world and of his native land, in particular, stand out as striking qualities of the Sarala Mahabharata. The well known historian Krushna Chandra Panigrahi tells us that Sarala Das was a soldier in the Gajapati’s army; such an image of Odisha’s versatile, pre-eminent poet would prompt one to see him as India’s Aeschylus, the celebrated Greek author who wished to be remembered by posterity not as a writer, but as a soldier who fought in the Marathon war. Sarala undoubtedly stands out as one of the flag-bearers in the history of literary culture in the world, who trusted Vol.-I Number 2
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his own vision of things rather than external authority and power. The magnificently humane tradition that he built through his work was, in a sense, sustained by a group of poets of Odisha who came after him and became known subsequently as the ‘Panchasakhas’(5 comrades). Like Sarala Das before them, the ‘Panchasakhas’ were people from among ordinary social strata, but extraordinarily gifted with creativity. Chronologically, immediately preceding the ‘Metaphysical’ English poets of the 17th century, they were devoutly religious, and largely wrote devotional hymns and meditative poems. Many of their compositions were written in a confessional vein, expressing the soul’s spiritual anguish in its earthly journey and seeking divine grace to achieve salvation. The leading voice among the ‘Panchasakhas’ was Balarama Das, author of the celebrated Jagamohan Ramayana, which was a household text in the Odiya home, as the Bible is in the West. Based on the original Valmiki Ramayana, it is also a highly innovative and versatile narrative. Its popular appeal lies in the mellifluous verse, as also in the imaginative rendering of various episodes from the Ramayana, with an impressive local colour. Balarama Das’s work was a leading voice in the contemporary social resistance movement in Vaisnavite circles against hegemonic Brahminism in the country. Like Sarala Das, Balarama Das was also a highly independent minded and defiant social revolutionary, and he used his poetic compositions with the objective of motivating people in the direction of radical social change. It is indeed difficult to think of spirited social missions in literature comparable to that of Sarala Das and Balarama Das in world literary cultures of their time. The four other comrades of Balarama Das were: Jagannath Das, Achyutanada Das, Yashovanta Das and Ananta Das. Each of these poets had an outstanding mind, with a deep spiritual leaning. They all had a truly global vision of the human existence, and belief in the human ability to progress spiritually through an enlightened process of self-cultivation and devotion to the Almighty. They found in the Vaisnavite sage Sri Chaitanya, who came to Orissa in 1510, a spiritual friend, philosopher and guide. Chaitanya was specially struck by the young Jagannath Das’s steadfast devotion to Lord Jagannath and by his daily singing of ‘Janans’ to the deity at the temple in Puri and became his closest admirer. Vol.-I Number 2
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Jagannath Das’s Bhagavata is another monumental work in the history of Odiya literary culture. Like Sarala Das’s Mahabharata, and Balrama Das’s Jagamohan Ramayana, it is a landmark text of immense cultural significance. It is daily read in the traditional Odiya household as a scripture and spiritual manual. Like the Sarala Mahabharata and the Jagamohan Ramayana, it is also an innovative rendering in Odiya of the original Bhagavata written in Sanskrit. The author’s noble, social objective was to provide common people access to literary narratives of godly life. English translation of the complete text of any of these three works of vast cultural interest is yet to be made for a reader in the English-speaking world to appreciate their value. Without supporting textual evidence, it would only seem a sweeping statement to assert that the three pioneering narratives in Odiya literature referred to above, amply demonstrate the fact that between the 15th and 17th centuries, Odiya literary culture was as advanced as any other in the world. As we move to later phases of development of Odiya literary culture, we come to a unique luminary in Odisha’s glittering cultural space. With a different social and intellectual background, and an exceptionally lively sense of culture, the legendary Upendra Bhanja, titled by posterity as Odisha’s ‘Kavi Samrat’ (Poet Emperor), literally reigned in Odisha’s cultural space, with few comparisons in the country, or perhaps in the world. I can only think of the great masters before him, like Kalidas, whose works in Sanskrit were a model for him; or of the great Italian narrator Boccaccio, whose eloquently bawdy Decameron may stand as a good match for Bhanja’s passionately erotic verse narrative Lavanyavati. Upendra Bhanja belonged to a royal and learned family in southern Odisha. With no royal ambition, however, the young prince Upendra had a passion for classical learning. He was an extraordinarily gifted person with an unusually sensitive imagination. Like his father and grandfather, he sought to make his mark as a poet in his (what sadly proved to be a short- lived) life; his literary achievements indeed far excelled theirs and those of any of his contemporaries. Bhanja wrote in a scholarly and Sankritized Odiya diction with the aim of enriching his native language and taking its literature to the great heights of Sanskrit literature. Influenced by the works of Vol.-I Number 2
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Vyasa, Valmiki, Kalidas and other learned authors, he wrote a large number of Kavyas (verse narratives) based on mythological and romantic themes. The most well-known among those are Vaidehishavilas and Lavanyavati. The former is a strikingly new rendering of the story of the Ramayana written in a delicately rhythmic, though intriguingly complex metrical pattern. Sita in Vaidehishavilas is an exceedingly beautiful and vivacious heroine. Rama is a noble, idealized hero. As artistic constructs, they are representations of an ideal woman and man. In the process of construction of the narrative, Bhanja’s aesthetic motif takes precedence over the ethical that is dominant in the Valmiki Ramayana. Literary scholars find the mythology-based Vaidehishavilas and the verse romance Lavanyavati hughly absorbing reading, while common people who listen to recitals in public gatherings enjoy their great lyrical charm and robust eroticism. To Bhanja, however, as to the anonymous makers of erotic sculptures of the temples of Konarak and Khajuraho, or to a Boccaccio, Zola, or D. H. Lawrence, nothing in human life, literature or art was obscene. Obscenity could only be a construction of perverse thinking. Inheritors of what we may term as the Bhanja tradition in the world literary culture are many. Modern Odiya poets such as Mayadhar Mansingh, Guru Prasad Mohanty, Ramakant Rath, Sourindra Barik and Pratibha Satapathy as also world authors like D. H. Lawrence, Tennessee Williams, and Doris Lessing have not only redefined the tradition of dealing with woman’s sexuality in intensely individualistic ways but also led our generation to look at the mysteries of the body and of woman-man relationship in a more liberated fashion without mental blocks and prejudices. The distinguished contemporary Odiya poet Ramakanta Rath’s mystical-real work Sri Radha, in existential terms, is Upendra Bhanja’s Vaidehi, without the ornamental embellishments. Between Upendra Bhanja and contemporary Odyia literary culture there were spectacular developmentes in Odisha’s cultural tradition, alongside parallel developments on the world scene. The rise and growth of social fiction, in particular, was monumental, with significant contributions made by outstanding writers from all continents. The Anglo-American, European and Russian traditions of fiction were steadily enriched, as were the Asian, and Australian fictions by the Vol.-I Number 2
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work of countless gifted women and men. On the Indian scene, there were novelists of no lesser stature. Writers like Bankim Chandra, Fakir Mohan Senapati, Sarat Chandra, Bibhuti Bandopadhyaya, Prem Chand, Phanishwar Nath Renu, Manu Bhandari, Gopinath Mohanty, Basant Kumari Patnaik, Mahasweta Devi, and Pratibha Ray are only a few among the distinguished authors, whose works have closely reflected the complex nature of contemporary literery culture. Their contribution to the increasing understanding of the human situaution, human relationships, and human values across cultures was significantly instrumental in opening up new windows to the world. In this respect, a revolutionary Odyia novel like Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Chha Mana Atha Guntha (Six Acres and a Third), or Gopinath Mohanty’s Paraja is of the status of a global classic as an astute critique of colonial Odisha/India, as D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers or The Rainbow is as a critique of industrial Britain. Three outstanding features of the long and rich tradition of Odiya literary culture, as of parallel world traditions are: (i) the pioneering contribution made by socially lower class authors, beginning with Sarala Das; (ii) the ingenious fusion of myths, folklore and history in literary narratives; and (iii) intelligent exposition of women’s issues by men as well as women authors. A phenomenal poetic work titled Stuti Chintamani (Prayers and Reflections) by an outstanding genius of 19th century Odisha, Bhima Bhoi, of the (tribal) ‘Kandha’ community, has few comparisons. A strong believer in a classless, casteless and egalitarian society, Bhoi visualised a happy global order, for the attainment of which he would sacrifice his own individual life. The well-known contemporary poet and literatuer Sitakanta Mahapatra has done valuable work in making a good deal of tribal (aural) literature available through transcription/ translation. Mahapatra in his own poetry also draws upon Odisha’s wide variety of myth and folklore.
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Stage performance of plays in metropolitan cities has been a popular feature of Odiya culture. It is true, however, that the appeal of the plays written by authors from relatively upper social circles remain largely limited to the intelligentsia, while the phenomenal dramatic literature produced by subaltern author-actor-producer like Vaisnab Pani has won the heart of the culture-hungry masses of Odisha’s rural and semi-urban population. Weaving his themes by a dexterous combination of myths and popular culture and by rendering them in the traditional poetic-dramatic modes, Pani succeeds in producing an all-time appeal; his versatile homespun technique in many ways surpasses that of the more sophisticated playwright of Irland, J. M. Synge. The feminist tradition in Odiya literary culture is a relatively recent development. It is amazing, however, that an immensely moving narrative of the woman’s situation titled Malha Jahna (Dying Moon) by the relatively less, known author Upendra Kishore Das appeared as early as 1923, before the celebrated writings of contemporary British authors such as Virginia Woolf or Doris Lessing were in existence. More recently, the successful works of women authors like Bina Pani Mohanty and Pratibha Ray have earned wide acclaim within the country as landmarks in Odisha’s literary culture, and these works deserve recognition abroad.
Contemporary Odiya poetry and dramatic literature have made their mark with a massive corpus of writings produced by several enlightened women and men with a strong social commitment. The poetry of Ramakanta Rath, Sitakant Mahapatra, J. P. Das and Pratibha Satpathy, for instance, and plays written by the versatile dramatist Manoranjan Das, and more sophisticated authors like J. P. Das have been translated into English and other languages and received wide acclaim. Vol.-I Number 2
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