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seemed too weak and effeminate to
Michael Madhusudan Dutt, too. But
then, his Meghnadbadh Kavya can also
serve as another Ramayana for the
large community of Ravana
worshippers in northern Bengal, a
community which still observes
Ramnavami, a festival that celebrates
Rama’s triumph over Ravana, as a day
of mourning.
The legitimacy for such dissent often
derives from a major feature of
the puranas, which the likes of
Madhusudan Dutt never fully
appreciated: our epic heroes and
heroines host elements of their antiselves
within themselves. If a hero is
aggressively masculine, he must
display a touch of femininity, and if a
great warrior, he must display at an
appropriate moment his non-martial
self, too. (The ideal woman, too, must
transcend gender boundaries to have
within her a clear trace of masculinity,
and a touch of what the popular
culture of sport nowadays calls the
killer instinct.) That allows the
Epic Culture – Ashis Nandy
If a hero is aggressively masculine, he must display a
touch of femininity, and if a great warrior, he must
display at an appropriate moment his
non-martial self, too.
protagonists to cross the boundaries of
their self and also access its negation.
If you take away that play with notself
or anti-self, you diminish the
psychological range of the
protagonists. One suspects this to be
part of a larger philosophy of life. (As
it happens, cross-cultural studies of
creativity among scientists and artists
have consistently shown a significant
correlation between creativity and the
ability to cross gender boundaries.
And even without such studies, many
in this part of the world noticed the
link between this ability and some
forms of spiritual attainment.)
Bankimchandra tried to turn Krishna
into a proper Semitic god, all
perfect and omnipotent. It
did not catch on. Everyone
remembers the effort as an
intellectual feat, but it has
little influence on the
religious life of Indians and
has not altered their
expectations from
the puranic heroes. The
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