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Routes of conflict

 

BAGESHREE S.

 

There are complex literary and political debates surrounding

Bhyrappa's works.

 

The Caravan (Sartha), S.L. Bhyrappa, translated from Kannada by S.

Ramaswamy, OUP, Rs. 395.

 

 

S.L. BHYRAPPA is among the few writers in Kannada to have won both

popular and critical attention. Almost all his novels have gone into

multiple prints and have been translated into several Indian

(including Sanskrit) and foreign languages.

 

Sartha (published in Kannada in 1998), which literally means a trading

caravan of ancient India, traces the journey of Vedic scholar

Nagabhatta. It's a physical as well as a metaphysical journey that

takes him through various streams of philosophy and ways of life that

were intermingling, negotiating and fighting for survival in 8th

century India.

 

King Amaruka sends Nagabhatta on a mission to study the secrets of

caravans of other lands in order to improve the economy of his

kingdom. Having thus "overstepped" the calling of his caste, dedicated

to Vedic learning, he begins to learn in a mode that would have been

unthinkable had he remained within the groove he was born into.

 

In the course of his itinerant life in a sartha, he meets people of

various castes and classes and understands what it is like to lead a

life of economic, political and social uncertainty. He experiments

with many religious faiths and cults. Once married and betrayed,

Nagabhatta falls in love with Chandrika, an actor in a travelling

theatre group he joins. What unfolds is a narrative of intense

conflicts — at one level between religions, sub-sects, political and

economic powers, and at another within the protagonist's mind as he

grapples with his spiritual and material aspirations.

 

Bhyrappa's close understanding of the philosophical debates is evident

throughout the novel, especially in the scholarly disputations between

Adi Shankara and Mandana Mishra. But an insistence on interrupting the

narrative flow with such detailed debates also renders the novel dry

and cerebral. The characters often sound like mere props on which

philosophical positions limply hang. Even the relationship between

Chandrika and Nagabhatta rarely takes on any emotional intensity.

 

But what is really problematic in Sartha is Bhyrappa's reading of the

historical epoch itself. The novel came in for criticism for being

"pro-Vaidik" and "anti-Buddhist" when it was published in Kannada.

Even as Nagabhatta is somewhat tentatively attracted to the simple

teachings of Buddha, he is suspicious of institutionalised Buddhism.

There is an unambiguous celebration of Shankaracharya's "triumph" over

other faiths of his time. Sartha also drops a hint that Buddhist monks

betrayed local rulers during the Arab incursion.

 

But what perhaps demands equal attention is Sartha's perspective on

the arrival of Arabs in Sindh. It often falls into the trap of reading

8th century history through filters and labels of a later date, a

tendency historians such as Romila Thapar have warned against. Though

Bhyrappa is careful not to use the post-colonial generic term "Hindu"

to describe the religious faith, his reading of Arabs and their

religion is one-dimensional and shockingly prejudiced. The fact that

 

Sartha is a fictional narrative with historical characters and

incidents makes its reading particularly tricky.

 

It's interesting that Nagabhatta, who is constantly plagued by a sense

of emptiness, finds a purpose as a zealous defender of the Vaidik

faith. The novel ends with his journey coming a full circle and his

marrying Chandrika, who has been raped by Arab invaders and is

pregnant. There are points in the novel when Nagabhatta is sceptical

of his own faith. But this self-critical strain gets completely lost

as the novel progresses and it becomes an unadulterated celebration of

the Vaidik faith. Bhyrappa writes in his preface to Sartha: "By this

time, the Vedic, Jaina and Buddhist streams had almost completed their

interactions and the advent of Islam, with its devastating effects,

had just begun".

 

Bhyrappa has constantly faced criticism from Dalit, Bandaya and a

section of Navya writers in Kannada for his "retrograde" views. He, on

his part, has been unsparing in his counter-attack on what he dubs

"Marxist" and "caste-centric" readings of history and his works.

 

The English translation of Sartha comes with an exceptionally long

introduction running to 40-odd pages. But not surprisingly, it makes

no mention of the complex literary and political debates that surround

Bhyrappa's works in the Kannada context.

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