Hinduism is the major religion of India with a worldwide following of over a billion people. In its original and purest form, it is a sanatana dharma (loosely translated as ‘eternal truth’ or ‘timeless religion’) that represents at least 7,000 years of contemplation, tradition, and continuous development in India. One who follows Hinduism is called a ‘Hindu’ (the term originally referred to a person who lived beyond the Sindhu river, i.e. in undivided India).
चोरस्सद्मोर्ध्वभेदादररविघटनात्तत्प्रघाणाप्रखाना
देडूकच्छेदनाद्वा विशति यदि गृहं तत्र नो नो विचारः |
किं त्वस्माकं सुरङ्गाकलनयति पुरे घोषयामास यस्मा
त्तस्मादेतत्सुरङ्गाधिप इति बिरुदं प्रोचुरेतत्पुरस्थाः ||
Nature Myths: In novels like ‘Vamshavruksha’, Jalapatha’, ‘Grahana’, ‘Datu’, ‘Parva’, ‘Nirakarana’, ‘Nele’ and some other novels, nature myths, natural phenomena and natural features like rain, spring or change of seasons, rivers, floods, cataracts, eclipses, mountains have been used effectively to reveal the influence of nature on the human situation.
नारायणस्य शय्यायां भोजनं स्यात्तु नोचितम् |
कथं साधु तदीयादिजन्मभक्षणमेव वः ||
The epics and mythology of a culture deeply influence art and literature. This is pronounced in the case of India, as our heritage still has the unbroken, living tradition of the sublime epics and their fascinating stories. For close to three millennia, our culture has drawn inspiring themes from these perennial sources, thus perpetuating their metaphorically powerful and aesthetically elevating expressions. All art forms of India—irrespective of distinctions like classical and non-classical, traditional and modern—are indebted to our extraordinary epic heritage.
The use of myth in ‘Saakshi’ also functions beautifully at another level by equating the mythical and magical power with the creative power of disinterested observation in an artist (novelist). This reminds me of what Coleridge says ‘’about the magical power of creativity, the power of an artist, in his poem ‘Kublakhan’:
‘That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That Sunny dome! Those caves of ice;
And all who heard should see them there
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Myth has become a prominent term at present in literary criticism. A large group of writers, myth-critics like Robert Graves, Francis Ferguson, Maud Bodkin, Richard Chase, Northrop Frye, Joseph Campbell and others view the genres and individual plot patterns of many works of literature - including what appear on the surface to be highly sophisticated and realistic world, as recurrences of basic mythic formulas.
भूत्वा पौल्कसकात् प्रपद्य रजकानाभाष्य पौराणिकान्
गानस्थानमुपेत्य चाशुकरणानालिङ्ग्य नत्वा कवीन् |
वेश्यासद्मनि संप्रविश्य च गता वैद्यस्य पाणिग्रहं
भूयो हन्त ! सुवर्णकारसदने सानन्दमास्ते मृषा ||
The fourth part of this translation comprises the verses that are not found in the critical edition but are in the Chitrashala edition. Most of them are as elegant as the ones found in the critical edition. This episode appears in chapters 311-12 of the Chitrashala edition. The verses are not numbered so as to avoid confusion.
This is the third part of the translation of the Yakshaprashna. With this, all the verses in the critical edition have been translated. In the fourth and concluding part of the translation we will take up all the verses from the Chitrashala edition that have not already been covered in the critical edition.