Three-fold Path to Fulfilment

Three-fold Path to Fulfillment

A Note on Raja Rao’s Fiction

Mrs. M. PARVATI DEVI

Due to the impact of the British on India two distinct branches have come into existence in our national scene. These are generally known as English-Indian literature and Indian-­English literature. To the English-Indian group belong writers like Somerset Maugham, I. H. Myers. E. M. Forster. Rudyard Kipling, Edwin Arnold, and others, although some of them belong to the mainstream of English literature as well. To the Indian ­English group belong versatile geniuses like Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo; poets like Toru Dutt. Sarojini Naidu, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, Nissim Ezekiel, Pritish Nandy, K. V. S. Murti, Kamala Das, and others; autobiographers like ­Jawaharlal Nehru, M. K. Gandhi, and Nirad C. Chaudhuri; fictionists like Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan. Raja Rao, Bhabani Bhattacharya, Manohar Malgonkar, Kamala Markandeya, Anita Desai and others. Among the novelists Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan and Raja Rao occupy a unique position.

Of the “Remarkable Triad,” Raja Rao is the most difficult but perhaps the most spiritually satisfying and enlightening novelist, for he makes generous use of religious and philosophical symbolism. A student of philosophy and religion, Raja Rao hails from Mysore State in India, has visited England and France, and is now settled in the United States. He has published two books of short-stories entitled The Cow of the Barricades (1947) and The Policeman and the Rose (1978); four important novels namely Kanthapura(1938), The Serpent and the Rope (1960), The Cat and Shakespeare (1965) and Comrade Kirillov (1976). Raja Rao has declared that for him “literature is sadhana– not a profession but a vocation.” While Kanthapuracelebrates Karmayoga, The Serpent and the Rope deals with Jnanayogaand The Cat and Shakespeare is primarily Bhaktiyoga.

Raja Rao’s collection of short-stories, The Cow of the Barricades, comprises all his themes and techniques in embryonic forms. He has developed for himself a charming poetic-prose style which is replete with his Indian upbringing and sensibility quite suitable to expound his difficult themes. “Javni”, “Narasiga”, “The Little Grain Shop” and “Akkayya” form a group which is full of sentiment. “Javni” and “Akkayya” deal with two typical South - Indian widows – belonging to the lower and upper rungs respectively of the middle-class, who signify selfless action. They are domestic Karmayogins, working for the happiness of others without looking for the fruits of action. This principle of Dharma or Nishkamakarmabecomes the main theme of Raja Rao’s Gandhian novel Kanthapura. “ Nimka” is the story of a Russian girl, and it reveals the knowledge of a gifted writer who, as an initiated insider of India and Europe, deploys the sensibility of both the cultures. And this double sensibility is intensely amplified as the theme in The Serpent and the Rope. Prof. C. D. Narasimhaiah says that the title story in The Cow of the Barricades is at once a “fact and symbol of India in the bondage of foreign rulers”. In style and content and technique, the story is the epitome of Kanthapura. “In Khandesh”, “India, a Fable” and “The Primierre of Sakuntala” form another set in his collected stories which are replete with the fantastic and the metaphysical. The controversial story “The Policeman and the Rose” is “pure fiction whatever it signifies”, and it is a sort of preface to the themes of the two novels The Serpent and the Rope and The Cat and Shakespeare.

Kanthapurais a miniature epic and, as Mulk Raj Anand puts it, it is presented in the technique of “bardic recital” or “the old wives’ tale, ...couched as a recital”.¹ It is akin to the Puranaand the story is narrated by an old woman Achakka to a younger stranger. Raja Rao, well-versed as he is in Indian tradition, strikes the right chord in making an old woman narrate the story representing all grandmothers and mothers of, India who are inveterate story-tellers. Kanthapura, employing the Gandhian legend and movement, brings forth in full force the role of a selfless youth, Moorthy, who is dedicated to Gandhian ideals. Moorthy infuses enthusiasm and instills courage in the folk to follow the Gandhian principles, along with him in his village Kanthapura, defying the Redman’s Government with non-payment of taxes “even if the Government attaches the lands” and picketing toddy booths “for toddy booths are there to exploit the poor and the unhappy.” Raising his voice higher he tells them:

We shall establish a parallel government and it is this government that will rule and not that, and the first act of government is to appoint Range Gowda Patel again .. For the Congress is the people and Patel is the people’s man and Range Gowda is our man and if the new patel comes and says, “Give me the revenue dues”, you will say, “I do not know you... you are not our man and we will offer you neither seat nor water, but never be harsh to them nor wicked, and above all”. he said, ... “remember each one of you is responsible for the harm done by the ether, and the first time violence is done against the police or those that are not with us, we shall stop the movement and wait for six months and more in penance and in prayer that our sins may be purified. Brothers and sisters, remember we are not out to fight against the demoniac corruption that has entered their hearts, and purer we are, the greater will be our victory, for the victory we seek is the victory of the heart. Send out love where there is hatred and a smile against brute force like unto the waters of Himavathy that spread outer boulders and sand and crematorium earth...Obey your chief and love your enemy, that is all I ask of you. ²

Herein lies the rare vision of an ideal young man renouncing everything in life. In discharging his Dharma to the society as a true Karmayogin.When Moorthy is arrested for promoting the zeal and patriotic fervour of the people of Kanthapura to become the followers of the Mahatma in his Swarajmovement, as a true Satyagrahihe vehemently refuses any advocate to be engaged to argue his case. He firmly believes:

“If truth is one, all men are one before it”.³ It is no wonder if Sankar, a lawyer of Karwar and another devout follower of Gandhi, is so much moved by the ardent faith of Moorthy that he whole-heartedly tells Rangamma “I love him like a brother and I have found no better Gandhist”.⁴ A teeming and prosperous village at the beginning of the novel, Kanthapura presents a deserted look at the end, almost all the inhabitants settling in the nearby village Kashipura as a result of their participation in the Gandhian movement. But the narrator’s conclusion leaves no doubt about the fact that all of them have had great satisfaction of having added their mite to the task of liberating Bharata Mata from the foreign yoke. Thus, Moorthy, apart from being a Karmayoginhimself, has converted Kanthapura itself into a place of Karmayogins.

            The Serpent and the Rope is Raja Rao’s Jnanayogabased on Karmayoga. If Kanthapurais a Purana, The Serpent and the Rope as an Itihasa. The hero Rama (Ramaswamy), who hails from a village Harishapura in Mysore State, Is a Brahmin, the son of a Mathematics Professor. He traces his geneology to Vidyaranya (Madhavacharya) and still beyond to the sage Yajnavalkya, defies convention but respects creed and establishes himself as a true Advaitinpursuing Jnanayogafor his salvation. He moves between India and Europe as he is married to a French lady, Madeleine, who is five years his senior in age and who is a History teacher. He himself is engaged in research on the Theory of Albigensian Heresy, and he thus seeks to establish a link between the Eastern and the Western Metaphysical Schools of thought. The play of the Feminine Principle on this earth is exquisitely illustrated in the theme. On love between husband and wife, Rama and Madeleine discuss:

“That is why the Hindus are right, no man can love a woman for her personal self.”
“Then, how does one love?”
“For the self within her, as Yajnavalkya said to Maitreyi, and I continued,” All women are perfect women for they have the feminine principle in them, in the Prakriti...?”
“And all men...?”
“...are perfect when they turn inward and know that the ultimate is man’s destiny. No man is bad that knows, ‘Lord, we be not of this Kingdom.’ ⁵”

The hero endowed with subtle intellect and vast knowledge discusses and analyses and moralises on various topics (Politics, History, Science, Literature, Religion, Philosophy, etc.) and confirms himself in conviction by experience. He has become a Guru to others, and shows the way to five women for their salvation – Madeleine, Savitri, Catherine, Little Mother and Saroja. He thus fulfils himself in Karmayogabasically. But how about his own salvation? Incidentally in his Jnanayogaor Jnanasadhana, awareness flashes within that he has to go in search of a Guru to dispel the illusion of the Serpent and show it as the Rope, the Reality. Rama comes to grips with the Absolute through his Guru, Atmananda, at Travancore and thus becomes a true Jnana­-yogin. Hence his long discussions on Religion and Phi1osophy and Metaphysics along with his internal spiritual drama leading to his ultimate tryst with Reality are aptly rendered in the first ­personal narration.

Five years after the publication of The Serpent and the Rope appeared his third novel The Cat and Shakespeare. Though compact, it is a longer Upanishad. It is Raja Rao’s bold venture to suggest a link between the East and the West. The Cat is a symbol of the Universal Mother, adopted from the Marjala­ Kishora-Nyaya. The lives of the two principal characters Rama­krishna Pai and Govindan Nair express the simplicity of joy and the sublime universality of Shakespeare. Raja Rao declares that the little novel is a book of prayer ⁶ or Bhaktiyoga-totalsurrender of the self to the Self to attain Mokshaor Salvation. Ramakrishna Pai is the true disciple of Govindan Nair who is a staunch believer In the Cat-kitten principle. Govindan Nair thus tells Ramakrishna Pai:

“Ah, the kitten when its neck is held by its mother, does it know anything else but the joy of being held by its mother? You see the elongated thin hairy thing dangling, and you think poor kid, it must suffer to be so held. But I say the kitten is the safest thing in the world, the kitten held in the mouth of the mother cat. Could one have been born without a mother? Modern inventions do not so much need a father. But a mother-I tell you, without mother the world is not. So allow her to fondle you and hold you. I often think how noble it is to see the world, the legs dangling straight, the eyes steady and the mouth of the mother at the neck. Beautiful”.⁷

Pai lives in Trivandrum, as a clerk in the Revenue Office, away from his wedded wife, Saroja, who stays at the native place with her son, looking after the estate inherited from her father. Pai meets Shanta, a schoolmistress who comes to his office concerning a land dispute. Shanta symbolises both Sadhana and the Feminine Principle:

Shanta is always mysterious, just as Saroja was always clear. Shanta always says two things at the same time. No wonder she and Govindan Nair like each other so much. She says: “How can anything mean one and one thing only? Look at the bilva tree ... So when you say it’s a bilva tree, that means there is the tree and the light that makes it the tree.” If I touch you, Shanta, there is no light in that. She said: “I can see you have never been across the wall. For there you could touch me and see yourself touch me.” “What, what’s special about that?” “The specialness is that it is not special. You think because I bear a child I am special. Very, very special, my lord.” “Yes, you are.” “But you know, as I teach in my school, all that is born had a mother. The father is not always so clear. Look at the bees and the flowers.” “So the mother is necessary for all children. Thus motherhood has nothing special. And what about fatherhood...?” She said: “There is proof.” ... “I am your proof. You are only seen by me. Who could know you as I know you? So the proof of my lord is me. The proof became concrete and became the child, I must know I am”. ⁸ (Aham Brahmasmi)

Shanta’s pregnancy and the anticipated birth of a son symbolise the beginning of Pai’s fulfilment. He fulfils his duty towards his son by purchasing a house to which he adds second storey, and the third storey is yet to be laid. In Hindu philosophy, human body is likened to a house, The three storeys stand for the three-fold path-Karmayoga, Jnanayoga and Bhaktiyoga. Pai gets the basic Jnanafrom Govindan Nair (who symbolizes Govindaor Krishna), and under his able guidance Pai fulfils himself in Karma (duty) through Shanta who is the means or Sadhana, Govindan Nair, the personification of Karmayogaand Jnanayogaand Bhaktiyoga, is the perfect Guru to Pai. Govindan Nair redeeming the hotel prostitute (a victim of circumstances or Karma), and discoursing on subtle and wise and intricate philosophical topics (living them and exemplifying them to others –­ Jnana), and ably guiding Pai (for his salvation or Nirvana), shows himself to be the able Guru; and he is also instrumental to the eradication of Evil, the corrupt boss Bhootalinga Iyer; and thus his action is reminiscent of the Bhagavadgitaideal:

Paritraanaaya saadhuunaam vinaasaayaca dishkritaam
Dharma samsthaapanaardhaaya sambhavaami yuge yuge. ⁹

(“For the protection of the virtuous, for the destruction of evil­doers, and for establishing Dharma (righteousness) on a firm footing, I am born from age to age”). His knowledge of everything and his faith in the Absolute and his selfless action make him enunciate clearly the path of Jnaanayogato Pai through various parables and myths, and above all by his own exemplary life. His perfect devotion and faith in God, symbolised by the Cat-kitten relation­ship, are revealed at every stage, thus rendering him a perfect Bhaktiyoginwho fulfils himself in salvation by His grace. Pai too finally attains the fulfilment following the Mother Cat, and crossing the wall, gets the Beatific Vision. Thus the Cat, symbol of Divinity, leads him to his ultimate goal of Moksha. So he emerges as a Bhaktiyoginby practising the Cat-kitten principle of Govindan Nair in the third and final stage of the journey of life to the Ultimate: the third storey of the House of Salvation is complete.

References

¹ Mulk Raj Anand: “Old Myth and New Myth: Recital versus Novel,” The Banasthali Patrika (Ed. by Rameshwar Gupta, Banasthali Vidya Pith, Year 5, No. 13, 1969), pp. 35 and 36.
² Kanthapura(Champak Library, 1947; First published by George Allen and Unwin, London. 1938), pp. 173-174.­
³ Ibid.,p. 119.
⁴ Ibid.,p. 129.
⁵ The Serpent and the Rope (Orient Papers, Hind Pocket Books, Delhi. 1968), pp. 310-311.
⁶ Cf. K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Indian Writing in English, (Asia Publishing House, Bombay.) p. 406.
⁷ The Cat and Shakespeare (Orient Papers, Hind Pocket Books, Delhi. 1971), pp. 11 and 12.
⁸ Ibid.,pp. 93-94.
⁹ Bhagavadgita, IV, 8.