Introduction
The book “Samskara: A rite for a dead man,” written by U.R. Ananthamurthy, provides an argument on the caste system in Indian society. The book sheds light on the hierarchical structures that extend from the Brahmin to the Shudra based on Brahminic Hinduism’s Varna dharma analogy. “Samskara” illustrates the degeneration of values, serving as the mirror to the custom reality in Indian society. In this novel, the author provides a post-structuralist method to the strict caste ideologies prevailing in Hindus. This novel has depicted the conservatism and narrow-mindedness of the Brahmin community based on the rise and fall of Praneshacharya, the protagonist. This novel reveals how a man gets tempted to have the “forbidden fruit”, the lower caste woman, and this act results in his downfall. The roots of the caste system have been entrenched in the Indian mind. This essay will explore what constitutes proper behavior for Brahmins in the novel for their Hindu religion and caste system.
Caste and Social Status
Praneshacharya, a protagonist, is at first depicted as a model Brahmin. Most of the people in the Brahmin village of Durvasapura are Brahmins. They are conventionally orthodox and strictly and conservatively adhere to the rules and principles defined by their Hindu religion. Praneshacharya is regarded as the most educated person in the community because he attained his Vedic education. The main goal of his life was to achieve moksha or liberation (Ananthamurthy, 2012). According to Praneshacharya, it serves as self-sacrifice if he marries an invalid woman, Bhagirathi, and remains celibate.
Furthermore, Praneshacharya continues the routine even if he is busy with other staff in the Agrahara even though he does not perform this purely out of love. He considers as he takes care of his wife he may achieve liberation. Praneshacharya wants to care for his wife and use it as a way to practice his tapas and penance. His initial thoughts are when he learns that she is sick. It is how he may see his wife’s fever has increased. Since she is contaminated by her menstrual blood and cannot touch her. Praneshacharya was using his caring for his wife as a gate to enter heaven (Ananthamurthy, 2012). It symbolizes a woman, who, regardless of her physical deformity and infertility is used as a way to go to heaven.
Naropa is the opposite of Praneshacharya. Brahmins of the Brahmin village of Durvasapura have revolted against him. Naropa lost his position as a Brahmin due to his acts of bringing home Chandri, a lower caste woman. Chandri is from the prostitute class; hence, classifying her as a lower caste member and everybody feels shame for her. Chandri is untouchable and invisible to Brahmins because a look at her may contaminate the Brahmins. Everyone in the community despises her, although behind the veil everybody is mad for her extraordinary beauty and desires to possess her. Since she comes from a lower caste, her comprehension is questionable as to if she is immature. However, this is a wrong belief since in the entire novel she is considered one who presents herself with a more mature vision than the rest of the Agrahara to the extent of Acharya, the authority (Ananthamurthy, 2012). Therefore, Narappa encouraged the entire Brahmin community to buy into what he did by marrying Chandri by giving in to their desire.
Naropa also eats fish and meats, is familiar with Muslims, and has trawled in a sacred pond. The community, therefore, urges Praneshacharya to banish Narappa from their idealistic Brahmin community even though Praneshacharya believes that Narappa may be convinced to abolish immoral deeds and converted back to a true Brahmin. Nonetheless, the sudden death of Narappa because of the plague complicates matters. It gets messy when the time comes to the limelight that his funeral pyre and his position as the true Brahmin are interrogated. The people in Agrahara, majorly of Brahmin caste, contemplate the last rites of a dead person of the Brahmin caste even though he violated his caste limits in his lifetime. The people are questioning his purity based on the foundations of his past deeds and this case; expose their shortcomings as a community of Brahmins (Ananthamurthy, 2012). Naropa is portrayed as anti-Brahmin spending his entire life disobeying Brahmin lifestyles and beliefs.
Transformation and Enlightenment of Praneshacharya
Praneshacharya has been changed and returned from his purification sacrament as a new person. Praneshacharya is dynamic being termed as a round character in the novel. He has a developing, dynamic, and evolving mind. Praneshacharya at the start of this novel and the end of the novel presents two different sets of persons. Chandri while waiting in the night to understand what Acharya learned in his prayers, made love to him. The boundaries of transgression emanate from three factors: mythic, erotic, and untouchable. In this case, eroticism ignores boundaries and crosses the bodies across the carnal/sacred divide. Hence, in this case, an internal incident meaningfully corresponds with an external incident. Praneshacharya becomes now not sure of his status, identity, or authority after the incident. He is now no longer considered the source of meaning even though he was the site of meaning in the Brahmin community (Ananthamurthy, 2012). Praneshacharya is now compelled to undergo a radical loss of coherence and identity.
The development of the identity of Praneshacharya negotiates with three components: symbolic, the real, and the imaginary. Despite his preparations, the sexual intercourse of Praneshacharya with Chandri transcends his ideas, conceptions, and notions of what needs to be done. Lack of sexual pleasure creates a psychological lacuna in Praneshacharya. Deep inside his unconscious desires, as later revealed in the narrative, he also wants to enjoy pleasures centered on children and women even though thwarted by his ascetic duty and responsibility to his religion (Ananthamurthy, 2012). Unconstrained by the death of Bhagirathi, he enters into the feral and unbalanced world of Putta which signified the death of his former self. He is now capable of justifying his disrupting unconscious.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the solution to Brahminism’s orthodoxy and its emergent caste system thus mostly entails giving up all forms of practices and rituals conventionally related to Brahminism. Praneshacharya did what Narappa did for many years after being disappointed with casteism and Brahminism. He wanders through lonely roads and forests; sleeps with Chandri, a prostitute; thinks of sleeping with other prostitutes, visits cockfights and fairs, and eats in the temple in the unclean circumstance. Despite all these aspects, a sad consciousness bothers him. Everybody within casteism is considered to internalize and justify their roles, hence being caught in the vicious cycle of chaotic caste system-based authority. The characters at the end of the story favor freedom from the shackles of superstitions and rituals.
Reference
Ananthamurthy, U. (2012). Samskara: A rite for a dead man. OUP India.