Samskara Read online

  UDUPI RAJAGOPALACHARYA ANANTHAMURTHY (1932–2014) was born in the Shimoga district in Karnataka, India. He studied English literature at the University of Mysore and received his doctorate from the University of Birmingham, England. He was a professor of English literature at the University of Mysore and the author of five novels, three volumes of poetry, a play, and many collections of short stories and essays. A socialist, Ananthamurthy was instrumental in the development of the Navya (or “new”) movement in Kannada literature. In 1995 he received the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honor, and in 2013 he was short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize.

  A. K. RAMANUJAN (1929–1993) was born Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan in Mysore, India, and grew up speaking Tamil, English, Sanskrit, and Kannada. A poet, translator, and scholar, for thirty-two years Ramanujan served in both the Department of Linguistics and the South Asian Languages and Civilizations Department at the University of Chicago. His many publications include The Collected Poems of A. K. Ramanujan and The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan.

  SAMSKARA

  A Rite for a Dead Man

  U. R. ANANTHAMURTHY

  Translated from the Kannada by

  A. K. RAMANUJAN

  NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS

  New York

  THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

  435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  www.nyrb.com

  Copyright © 1976 by Oxford University Press

  All rights reserved.

  Originally published in English in 1976 by Oxford University Press India and reprinted here by arrangement with the publisher.

  Cover image: S. H. Raza, L’Éte ’67, 1967; © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

  Cover design: Katy Homans

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Anantha Murthy, U. R., 1932–2014 author. | Ramanujan, A. K., 1929–1993 translator.

  Title: Samskara : a rite for a dead man / by U. R. Ananthamurthy ; translated and with an introduction by A. K. Ramanujan.

  Other titles: Saṃskāra. English

  Description: New York : New York Review Books, 2016. | Series: New York Review Books classics

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016019584| ISBN 9781590179123 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9781590179130 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: India—Social life and customs—Fiction. | Funeral rites and ceremonies—India—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PL4659.A5 S213 2016 | DDC 894.8/14371—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019584

  ISBN 978-1-59017-913-0

  v1.0

  For a complete list of titles, visit www.nyrb.com or write to: Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  CONTENTS

  Biographical Notes

  Title Page

  Copyright and More Information

  Translator’s Note

  SAMSKARA

  Notes

  Afterword

  In Conversation with U. R. Ananthamurthy

  TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

  U. R. ANANTHAMURTHY’S Samskara is an important novel of the sixties. It is a religious novella about a decaying brahmin colony in a Karnataka village, an allegory rich in realistic detail. Popular with critic and common reader alike since its publication in 1965, it was made into an award-winning, controversial film in 1970.

  Samskara takes its title seriously. Hence, our epigraph is a dictionary entry on this important Sanskrit word with many meanings. (See the Afterword for a fuller discussion.)

  I have tried to make the translation self-contained, faithful yet readable. But “the best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.”

  A translator hopes not only to translate a text, but hopes (against all odds) to translate a non-native reader into a native one. The Notes and Afterword are part of that effort.

  Many friends have willingly shared their expertise and good taste with me; I wish to thank the following especially:

  Girish Karnad, who checked an early draft meticulously against the original and offered detailed suggestions; U. R. Ananthamurthy, the novelist, for permission and generous criticism; Philip Oldenburg, Donald Nelson, Edward Dimock and Molly Ramanujan at Chicago, Paul Engle, Peter Nazareth and others at Iowa for commenting on drafts and sections; Shirley Payne, who typed draft after draft, with tireless goodwill; The Illustrated Weekly of India, for serializing the novel in their columns; the editorial staff of the Oxford University Press for reading all the proofs and for their friendship and patience.

  A. K. RAMANUJAN

  Chicago, 1976

  SAMSKARA

  In Memory of

  M. G. Krishnamurti (1932–1975)

  Sam·s·kāra. 1. Forming well or thoroughly, making perfect, perfecting; finishing, refining, refinement, accomplishment. 2. Forming in the mind, conception, idea, notion; the power of memory, faculty of recollection, the realizing of past perceptions . . . 3. Preparation, making ready, preparation of food, etc., cooking, dressing . . . 4 . . . 5. Making sacred, hallowing, consecration, dedication; consecration of a king, etc. 6. Making pure, purification, purity. 7. A sanctifying or purificatory rite or essential ceremony (enjoined on all the first three classes or castes). 8. Any rite or ceremony. 9. Funeral obsequies.

  From p. 1479, A Kannada-English Dictionary by the Reverend F. Kittel, Mangalore, 1894

  PART ONE

  I

  HE BATHED Bhagirathi’s body, a dried-up wasted pea-pod, and wrapped a fresh sari around it; then he offered food and flowers to the gods as he did every day, put the flowers in her hair, and gave her holy water. She touched his feet, he blessed her. Then he brought her a bowlful of cracked-wheat porridge from the kitchen.

  Bhagirathi said in a low voice, “You finish your meal first.”

  “No, no. Finish your porridge. That first.”

  The words were part of a twenty-year-old routine between them. A routine that began with the bath at dawn, twilight prayers, cooking, medicines for his wife. And crossing the stream again to the Maruti temple for worship. That was the unfailing daily routine. After their meals, the brahmins of the agrahara would come to the front of his house, one by one, and gather there to listen to his recitation of sacred legends, always new and always dear to them and to him. In the evening he would take another bath, say more twilight prayers, make porridge for his wife, cook, eat dinner. Then there would be more recitations for the brahmins who gathered again on the verandah.

  Now and then Bhagirathi would say: “Being married to me is no joy. A house needs a child. Why don’t you just get married again?” Praneshacharya would laugh aloud. “A wedding for an old man. . . .”

  “Come now, what kind of an old man are you? You haven’t touched forty yet. Any father would love to give you his girl and bless her with wedding water. You studied Sanskrit in Kashi. . . . A house needs a child to make it home. You’ve had no joy in this marriage.”

  Praneshacharya would not answer. He would smile and pat his wife who was trying to get up, and ask her to try and go to sleep. Didn’t Lord Krishna say: Do what’s to be done with no thought of fruit? The Lord definitely means to test him on his way to salvation; that’s why He has given him a brahmin birth this time and set him up in this kind of family. The Acharya is filled with pleasure and a sense of worth as sweet as the five-fold nectar of holy days; he is filled with compassion for his ailing wife. He proudly swells a little at his lot, thinking, “By marrying an invalid, I get ripe and ready.”

  Before he sat down to his meal, he picked up the fodder for Gowri, the cow, on a banana leaf and placed it in front of Gowri who was grazing in the backyard. Worshipfully h
e caressed the cow’s body, till the hair on her hide rose in pleasure. In a gesture of respect, he touched his own eyes with the hand that had touched the holy animal. As he came in, he heard a woman’s voice calling out, “Acharya, Acharya.”

  It sounded like Chandri’s voice. Chandri was Naranappa’s concubine. If the Acharya talked to her, he would be polluted; he would have to bathe again before his meal. But how can a morsel go down the gullet with a woman waiting in the yard?

  He came out. Chandri quickly pulled the end of her sari over her head, blanched, and stood there, afraid.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “He . . . He . . .”

  Chandri shivered; words stuck in her mouth. She held on to the pillar.

  “What? Naranappa? What happened?”

  “Gone . . .”

  She covered her face with her hands.

  “Narayana, Narayana—when was that?”

  “Just now.”

  Between sobs Chandri answered:

  “He came back from Shivamogge and took to bed in a fever. Four days of fever, that’s all. He had a painful lump on his side, the kind they get with fever.”

  “Narayana.”

  Praneshacharya ran out, still wrapped in the ritual raw silk, ran to Garudacharya’s house and went straight to the kitchen calling out, “Garuda, Garuda!”

  The dead Naranappa had been related to Garuda for five generations. Naranappa’s great-grandfather’s grandmother and Garuda’s great-grandfather’s grandmother were sisters.

  Garudacharya was in the act of raising a handful of rice mixed with saru to his mouth, when Praneshacharya entered, wiping the sweat of midday from his face, and said, “Narayana. Don’t. Garuda, don’t eat. I hear Naranappa is dead.” Dumbstruck, Garuda threw down the mixed rice in his hand on the leaf before him, took a gulp of consecrated water and rose from his seat. He couldn’t eat, even though he had quarrelled with Naranappa, severed all relations with him, and shed his kinship long ago. His wife, Sitadevi, stood there motionless, ladle in hand. He said to her, “It’s all right for the children. They can eat. Only we adults shouldn’t, till the funeral rites are done.” He came out with Praneshacharya. They feared that the kinsmen next door might eat before they got the news, so they ran from house to house—Praneshacharya to Udupi Lakshmanacharya, Garudacharya to Lakshmidevamma the half-wit and to Durgabhatta down the street. The news of death spread like a fire to the other ten houses of the agrahara. Doors and windows were shut, with children inside. By god’s grace, no brahmin had yet eaten. Not a human soul there felt a pang at Naranappa’s death, not even women and children. Still in everyone’s heart an obscure fear, an unclean anxiety. Alive, Naranappa was an enemy; dead, a preventer of meals; as a corpse, a problem, a nuisance. Soon the men moved towards the Acharya’s house-front. The wives blew words of warning into their husbands’ ears:

  “Don’t be in a hurry. Wait till Praneshacharya gives you a decision. Don’t agree too quickly to perform the rites. You may do the wrong thing. The guru will excommunicate you.”

  The brahmins gathered again, just as they did for the daily reading of the holy legends, crowded one against the other. But today an obscure anxiety brooded among them. Fingering the basil-bead rosary round his neck, Praneshacharya said to them, almost as if to himself:

  “Naranappa’s death-rites have to be done: that’s problem one. He has no children. Someone should do it: that’s problem two.”

  Chandri, standing against the pillar in the yard, waited anxiously for the brahmins’ verdict. The brahmin wives had come in through the backdoor into the middle hall, unable to contain their curiosity, afraid their husbands might do something rash.

  Fondling his fat black naked arms, Garudacharya said as usual:

  “Yes. Ye . . . es. Ye . . . es.”

  “No one can eat anything until the body’s cremated,” said Dasacharya, one of the poorer brahmins, thin, bony as a sick cow.

  “True . . . true . . . quite true,” said Lakshmanacharya, rubbing his belly—jerking his face forwards and backwards, batting his eyelids rapidly. The only well-fed part of his body was his belly, swollen with malarial bubo. Sunken cheeks, yellow eyes deep in sockets, ribs protruding, a leg twisted—altogether an unbalanced body. The rival brahmins of Parijatapura mocked at him for walking with his buttocks out.

  No one had a direct suggestion. Praneshacharya said:

  “So the problem before us is—who should perform the rites? The Books say, any relative can. Failing that, any brahmin can offer to do them.”

  When relatives were mentioned, everyone looked at Garuda and Lakshmana. Lakshmana closed his eyes, as if to say it’s not for him. But Garuda was familiar with law courts, having walked up and down many; he felt it was his turn to speak up. So he raised a pinch of snuff to his nose and cleared his throat:

  “It’s but right we should go by the ancient Law Books. Acharya, you are our greatest scholar, your word is vedic gospel to us. Give us the word, we’ll do it. Between Naranappa and me, it’s true, there’s a bond of kinship going back several generations. But, as you know, his father and I fought over that orchard and went to court. After his father’s death, I appealed to the guru at the Dharmasthala monastery. He decreed in my favour. Yet Naranappa defied it, even god’s word—what do you say?—So we swore we’d have nothing between us for generations to come, nothing, no exchange of words, no wedding, no rite, no meal, no hospitality. That’s what we swore—what do you say . . .”

  Garudacharya’s nasal sentences punctuated by his what-do-you-says suddenly halted, but were spurred on again by two more pinches of snuff. He gathered courage, looked around, saw Chandri’s face and said boldly:

  “The guru will also agree to what you say. What do you say? Let’s set aside the question of whether I should do the rites. The real question is: is he a brahmin at all? What do you say?—He slept regularly with a lowcaste woman . . .”

  There was only one man from the Smarta sect, Durgabhatta, in this colony of Madhva brahmins. He was always checking and measuring the rival sect’s orthodoxy with a questioning eye. He looked sideways at Chandri and cackled:

  “Chi Chi Chi, don’t be too rash, Acharya. O no, a brahmin isn’t lost because he takes a lowborn prostitute. Our ancestors after all came from the North—you can ask Praneshacharya if you wish— history says they cohabited with Dravidian women. Don’t think I am being facetious. Think of all the people who go to the brothels of Basrur in South Kanara . . .”

  Garudacharya got angry. This fellow was mischievous.

  “Not so fast, not so fast, Durgabhatta! The question here is not simply one of carnal desire. We don’t have to advise our great Praneshacharya. He knows all about alliances and misalliances, has studied it all in Kashi, he knows all the scriptures, earned the title Crest-Jewel of Vedic Learning. What do you say? . . . Our Acharya has won all sorts of arguments with all the super-pundits, yours and ours, won honours at every seat of learning in the South, fifteen lace shawls and silver platters . . . our Acharya . . . what do you say? . . .”

  Embarrassed by the way this conversation had turned away from the question at hand towards his own praise, Praneshacharya said:

  “Lakshmana, what do you say? Naranappa was married to your wife’s sister, after all.”

  Lakshmana closed his eyes.

  “It’s your word, your command. What do we know of the subtleties of dharma? As Garuda says, Naranappa had contacts with a low-caste . . .” He stopped in the middle of his sentence, opened his eyes wide, and dug into his nose with his upper cloth. “As you know, he even ate what she cooked . . .”

  Padmanabhacharya who lived right opposite Naranappa’s house added:

  “And he drank too.”

  “Besides drinking, he ate animal flesh.” Turning to Durgabhatta, Garudacharya said, “Maybe even that doesn’t matter too much to you people. Shankara, your great founder, in his hunger for full experience, exchanged his body for a dead king’s and enjoyed himself with the queen, d
idn’t he?”

  Praneshacharya thought that the talk was getting out of hand. He said, “Garuda. Stop talking for a while, please.”

  “Naranappa abandoned his lawful wife after tying the wedding-string round her neck. You may condone even that . . .” Lakshmana had closed his eyes again and started talking. “He went and got mixed up with some woman. My wife’s sister became hysterical and died: he didn’t even come to the funeral rites. You may condone even that; but he didn’t care to observe the death-anniversaries of his own father and mother. I’m not the sort who would hide anything about him just because he was my close relative. He was my wife’s uncle’s son. We tolerated things and sheltered him in our lap as long as we could. In return, what does he do? He comes to the river in full view of all the brahmins and takes the holy stone that we’ve worshipped for generations and throws it in the water and spits after it! Condone everything if you wish—but didn’t he, wilfully, before our very eyes, bring Muslims over and eat and drink forbidden things in the wide-open front yard? If any of us questioned him in good faith, he would turn on us, cover us with abuse from head to foot. As long as he lived, we just had to walk in fear of him.”

  Lakshmana’s wife, Anasuya, listening to him from inside the house, felt proud that her husband said all the right things. Her eyes fell on Chandri sitting against the pillar, and she cursed her to her heart’s content: may tigers trample her at midnight, may snakes bite her, this whore, this seducing witch! If she had not given him potions, why should he, Anasuya’s own maternal uncle’s son, why should he push aside his own kinswoman, call her an invalid, squander all his property, and throw all the ancestral gold and jewels on the neck of this evil witch! She looked at the four-strand gold chain round Chandri’s neck and the thick gold bracelet on her wrist, and could not bear to think of it. She wept loudly. If only her sister had been alive, that gold chain would have been round her neck—would a blood-relative’s corpse lie around like this without even the benefit of a rite? All because of this filthy whore—won’t someone brand her face! Anasuya simmered and simmered till she boiled over and cried.