Science, Technology and Development ISSN : 0950-0707

Myth of Yagna in Karnad’s The Fire and The Rain

KONJENGBAM BIJAYARANI DEVI Research Scholar CMJ University, Jorabat ,

Abstract is one of the latest seven recipients of Jnanpith award. His plays place him to the rank of the foremost progenitors of contemporary Indian drama. He enriched the Indian literary scene by his contribution to art, culture, theatre and drama. The Fire and The Rain is his mythical play. He doesn’t take the myth entirely but only parts that are useful to him and related to social rituals. Myths are generally dateless. In the play he uses the myth of Yagna, taken out from the . He deviates slightly from the original story of . The whole story develops around the sanctity of Yagna. The duration of a Yagna was varied and some stretched over years. The Mahabharata opens with a Yagna that was going on twelve (12) years. The Yagna was considered as the best Karma. In the play of Karnad Yagna goes for only seven years to please Indra, the God of rain because the land suffers drought and water was nowhere. Paravasu was appointed the chief of the Yagna. He and other priest participants in the Yagna were regulated by stringent rules. Even gods also performed Yagna.

Key Words: Yagna, Cinebella, Mahabharata, Oresteia, Veda, Natyashastra.

Introduction: Karnad’s The Fire and the Rain has chalked up perhaps the most extraordinary performance record and range response among his plays. It’s also made a film entitled ‘Agni Varsha’ . Agni Varsha , the first feature film directed by Arjun Sajnani. But he failed to mention Karnad was the original author of the play. Readers like Ramachandra Gandhi, Ramachandra Guha and Shanta Gokhale have praised the play, and Bhasker Chandavarkar describes it as not Karnad’s best work but unable to be surpassed. It is the first of a series of art films being released in North America by the Los Angeles-based Company Cinebella with the theme “ Beyond ”. Like other films it includes songs and dance sequences, but here they have a deeper ritualistic and musical weight than in typical Indian movies. The films featuring Jackei Schroff as Paravasu, Raveena Tondon as Vishaka, Milind Suman as Aravasu, as Indra and many more.

Girish Karnad has already set out his dramatic excellence while working on the myths and symbols in his Hayavadana, Tughlaq and Naga-Mandala . Myths and folk-tales, to Karnad, become symbolic of unveiling the social and moral norms and the psychological obsessions with men and women of the structural pattern of ‘ The Fire and The Rain ’ are showing vehemently opposing elements: The fire of human passion and jealousies and rain of human love and sacrifice.

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Karnad came across sources of play while still in college, in Rajagopalchari’s abridgment of the Mahabharata . Karnad was fortunate that Rajaji did not do so, for the moment he read the tale. He knew it had to be turned into a play. For the next thirty-seven years, he struggled with it, trying to fit all the ramifications of the myth within some sort of a manageable shape. The play being a symbolic and psychological interpretation of the myth of the Mahabharata revivified the myth again into modern context. This peripheral tale of the Mahabharata exerts an influence upon Karnad to an extent as he finds some uncanny parallels with that of Aeschylus’s Oresteia . Karnad in an interview says:

The basic myths come with their own meaning, of course. In that too the similarities were remarkable. I delved into Aeschylus’ classic play and considered the joy of re-learning that text the reward for writing The Fire and The Rain. [Tutun: 46-47]

Deviating slightly from the original story of the Mahabharata he brings into being the characters: Bhrama Rakshasa and Nittilai. The plot of the play is not as simple as that of Karnad’s earlier plays.

O.P. Budholia says about the play thus:

The Fire and The Rain abounds in its hard-woven texture the riches of psychology, the aversion and the jealousy of man against man, father against son, brother against brother, wife against husband, high caste against low caste people, man against God, ritual against sacrifice, freedom against bondage, attraction against repulsion, hate against love, the fire against the rain, illusion against the reality, passion against the truth and above all vidya (knowledge) against avidya (ignorance) [Agarwal:148]

It is significant to note that the title of the play is suggestive as well as symbolic. In the Shata Patha it is said that fire creates smoke, smoke makes clouds, and clouds bring rain.

Myth of Yagna:

The play is divided into three acts with an epilogue. It deals with three myths - the myth of Indra, the myth of Yavakri and the myth Yagna. Karnad deviated slightly from the original story of the Mahabharata and brings into being the character of Brahma Rakshasa and Nittilai, a hunter girl for bearing upon the colonial and post-colonial perspectives in the play. In addition to it, Karnad also defines the art of theatre and knowledge of theatricality and regards it as the fifth Veda.

The whole play develops around the sanctity of Yagna. Karnad himself writes in Notes the activities of the priest thus:

The duration of a fire sacrifice was varied and some stretched over years. The Mahabharata opens with a sacrifice that was to go on for twelve years. The daily activity of a sacrifice is cyclical. And there are intervals between the ritual actions when the priests are free and can devote their time to other activities, not directly connected with the sacrifice. Story telling was an activity that often occupied the intervals between the actions of the rite. The whole of the Mahabharata , for

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instance, was narrated during such intervals between rites. The space could also be devoted to the performance of plays. In the last chapter of the Natyashastra , King Nahusha expressed his intention to arrange for dramatic performances at yajnas. [ The Fire and The Rain : Notes ]

According to Vedic belief, Yagna is the holy instrument for the meeting of Gods and men on this earth. Yagna is called as the base of the Vedic religion. The Bhagavad Gita presents thirteen different types of Yagnas. Yagna is considered as the best karma i,e. action. Selfless task is the best karma and therefore it tells that one should act constantly without having any expectation or any reward. Karma, i.e, the best of action, creates Yagna, karma is created by nature, and nature is created by the Almighty. So, the God exists right within Yagna. Karnad thinks fire sacrifice was a rite of such central importance in the Vedic society and so completely dominated the mode of thinking that it became the central metaphor, used to underline the importance of any of the activities. Thus the Yagna metaphor has been employed while talking of academic study, love-making, the epics, marriage, indeed of life itself. One need hardly mention then that it is also a favourite metaphor for theatre. Kalidas talks of theatre as the ‘desirable fire sacrifice of the eyes’.

Karnad writes in Prologue that it has not rained adequately for nearly ten years. Drought drips the land. A seven year long fire sacrifice (yagna) is being held to propitiate Indra, the God of rain. J.L. Brockington rightly says about Yagna, Fire sacrifice thus:

In Vedic thought, as in the Iranian tradition, there was a conception of the world as due not to a chance encounter of elements but as governed by an objective order, inherent in the nature of things, of which the gods are only the guardians... The sacrifice (yagna) is performed on behalf of an individual householder, technically called the sacrifice, accompanies by his wife, but all the ritual acts are performed by priest, varying in number from one to sixteen and ultimately seventeen officiants in the full . . . sacrifice . . . a special area is consecrated for each performance of a ritual and the sacrifice undergoes a consecration setting him apart from the profane world. In essence, the sacrifice can be regarded as a periodic ritual by which the universe is recreated, with the sacrificer like his prototype Prajapati incorporating the universe. [The Fire and The Rain : Notes]

There are four chief priests required for performing yagna. The conduct of the participants is regulated by stringent rules. They cannot go outside the sacrificial precinets. They cannot indulge in sexual dalliance. They cannot speak to lower caste people, etc. The priests are all dressed in long flowing seamless pieces of cloth, and wear sacred threads. The king, who is the host, is similarly dressed but has his head covered. M.Hiriyanna says in regard to priest of Yajna thus:

There is one aspect of the idea of divinity in this period to which we should call particular attention, viz. its intimate association with what is described as Rita. Rita which etymologically stands for ‘course’, originally meant ‘cosmic order’, the maintenance of which . . . is the purpose of all the gods; and later it also came to mean right’, so the gods were conceived as preserving the world not merely from physical disorder but also from moral chaos . . .This [initially] simple form of worship became more and more complicated and gave rise, in course

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of time, to celebrate sacrifices as also to a special class of professional priest who alone, it was believed, could officiate at them. . . . many among modern scholars as importing of the magical element into Vedic religion and . . .as a sign of the transfer of power from the gods to the priest . . .[Hiriyanna:12,16]

In the play Paravasu is the conducting priest (adhvarya). He’ll call the Chief Priest. He is about twenty-eight. Raibhya, instead of getting pride of fathering a son who is invited and honoured to be the Chief Priest of the Royal Fire Sacrifice, was himself ambitious of getting the invitation from the King to become the Chief Priest. But the king thinks of his old age and invites Paravasu. At this Raibhya is furious and says:

So you measured my life-span, did you - you and your king? Tested the strength of my life-line? Well, the sacrifice is almost over and I’m still here. A life and kicking. Tell the King I shall outlive my son. I shall live long enough to feed their dead souls. [The Fire and The Rain : 29]

Of course, no one can deny Raibhya’s scholarship and his knowledge. In fact, he should be the first person to have invited for the Fire Sacrifice. But if he is not invited and his son gets the chance, then why he should feel that he is being humiliated or insulted? That his son has surpassed him? In fact, he should become happy that his son has proved equal to him. Like father, like son. The chief reason behind Paravasu’s acceptance of the King Invitation is that he wanted to be immortal. Moreover, Paravasu accepts invitation of becoming the Chief priest of the Royal Fire Sacrifice not because he wan,t to use his divine Knowledge in bringing rain and helping the common people. But Paravasu treats Yagna as some else can be seen from the following conversation between Vishakha and himself:

PARAVASU: Stand in a circle of fire. Torture oneself . . .give us rains. Cattle. Sons. Wealth. As though one defined human being by their begging - I despise it. I went because the fire sacrifice is a formal rite. Structured, it involves no emotional acrobatics from the participants. The process itself will bring Indra to me. And if anything goes wrong, there’s nothing the gods can do about it. It has to be set right by a man. By me. That’s why when the moment comes I shall confront Indra in silence. As an equal. For that, it is essential that one sheds all human weakness. . . . VISHAKHA: And become immortal? PARAVASU: At least for that moment, yes. [Ibid. 31-32]

In the play Yagna is performed to please Indra the God of Skies, God of rain and the wielder of the thunderbolt. About god Indra Brockington said:

Indra was clearly the most popular deity among the Gods of the Ridveda . . . , for almost a quarter of all hymns are addressed to him. He is the dominant deity of the middle region, the region between the Earth and Heaven . . . A few [of the hymns] make him the son of Tvastri, the Great father and creator of all creatures . . . His chief

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characteristic, accorded unstinted praise, is all powers, both on the human plane as the god of battle . . . and mythologically as the thunder god who conquers the demons of drought and darkness, thus liberating the waters or winning the light. The most basic myth connected with Indra concerns his battle with the serpent Vritra, who is obstructing the water and the shy . . [Brockington: 10-11]

Yagna is not only performed by human beings to get something but Indra, the God of rain himself also did it in honour of his father. Indra says:

I shall organize a fire sacrifice in honour of our father, Brahma, the Lord of All creations . . . [Collected Plays Vol. No . II: 167] Conclusion :

The Yagna was performed mostly by rich people to get job, wealth, beautiful wife or husband, marriage, son, etc. and every auspicious function is conducted with Yagna in Hindu religion. Karnad’s Yagna runs for seven years and in the Mahabharata it goes on for twelve years. He deviates slightly for dramatic achievements. Yagna in Vedic belief, is an instrument for the meeting man with god. Karnad follows the originality of Priest rules in the plays.

Reference :

1.Agarwal, K.A. & Verma, M.R. Reflection on Indian English Literature , New Delhi: Atlantic Publisher & Distributor, 2002. 2. J.l.Brockington, The Sacred Thread: A Story History of Hinduism, n.p. : Oxford University Press, 1992. 3. Karnad, Girish, The Fire and The Rain, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998. 4. M. Hiriyanna, The Essentials of Indian Philosophy , George Allen & Unwin, 1949. 5. Mukherjee, Tutun, Girish Karnad’s Plays Performance and Critical Perspectives, Delhi: Pen Craft International,2008.

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