6. Unusual Mixing of History and Myth

Indian history is always under the superseding of myths. Consequently it always reflected a colourful imaginary world rather than its historical realm. Up to the arrival of Europeans to India, the Indian society revolved around the “historical facts” from the Epics and Puranas etc. The Europeans started the formal education in India based on Science and Scientific knowledge system. The Orientalists discard the different Indian notions and believe under the category of myth. They discovered the covered truth of Indus valley civilisation and Ashoka inscriptions etc. and gave more values for it. This started the argument that the Ramayana and Mahabharata etc. were no myth but history. How the fundamental Europeans demanding a ban on the study of evolution, similarly fundamentalist Hindus in India asked to taught the Ramayana and Mahabharata as a part of history.^[1] That’s why Indian history always faces the conflicts with the myths. So that historians cannot declare it without any controversies.

In the drama Annadatricarita, the dramatist accepted an unusual blending of myth and history. He accepted the theme from the Sangam period myth related to Utiyan Ceralatan. However, this myth is an unusual fabrication of Sangam period and it is clarified by the historians also. But the interesting fact is that, the dramatist introduced Utiyan Ceralatan as an ancestor of the Travancore king Chittirathirunal Balaramavarma.