Retelling Hindu Narratives Outside the Epics

In the past thirty-five years, there have been a plethora of scholarly studies of retellings of the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata epic narrative traditions. But what about retellings of Hindu stories other than the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata such as the Upaniṣads, the Purāṇas, sthalapurāṇas, hagiographies, and other religious narratives? The goal of this panel is to highlight the outstanding diversity of retellings of Hindu narratives throughout South Asia. This panel brings together four scholars of religion who will examine retellings of Hindu stories in multiple languages including Sanskrit, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, and English, and in several different mediums such as narrative poems, comic books, magazines, and television serials. The four papers in this panel span diverse locations in South Asia from Gujarat to Kashmir to Tamil Nadu to Andhra Pradesh and integrate approaches from different fields including comparative literature, anthropology, gender studies, and media studies. 

Though narratives from the Purāṇas and epics are far more prevalent in Hindu imaginings, the Upaniṣads also provide a series of enduring stories. The first paper focuses on modern reconfigurations of the didactic dialogue between Naciketas and Yama in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad. The narrative itself is relatively straightforward: a young child made to wait at Death’s doorstep is granted three wishes, one of which is to learn about death itself. However, its complex teachings, including the famous chariot analogy, have long invited reflection and interpretation. Exploring three different formations—in Advaita Vedānta storytelling, in a 1979 issue of the illustrated series Amar Chitra Katha, and in a 45-minute water and light show in Gandhinagar, Gujarat—our first presenter attends to how the chosen form of the retelling factors into differential emphases aimed at diverse target audiences. 

The second paper is about the eleventh-century Kathāsaritsāgara of Somadeva, a magisterial narrative, so large as nearly to constitute an encyclopedia of Indian story literature, this even as it is likely to convey only a fraction of the original text of which it is a retelling, Guṇāḍhya’s perhaps sixth-century, Paiśācī-language narrative, the Bṛhatkathā.  The first presenter identifies unique features of what is in fact only one of many retellings of Guṇāḍhya’s now-lost work. The first presenter argues it presents a double narrative, transforming a text originally steeped in Buddhism and mercantile life into a Brahmanical work tied to a popularized understanding of Śaiva tantrism. Ultimately, the narrative claims that kings need Brahmins to succeed in the world and beyond, and that Brahmins need tantra—and the powers that can be furnished at the edges of polite society in the dangerous charnel grounds—if they are fruitfully to guide kings to the same.

The third paper examines a retelling of the origins of the goddess temple in Tiruchanur (also known as Alamelumangapuram) a couple of kilometers outside of the bustling pilgrimage town of Tirupati. Though it is an oft-overlooked story, this paper will explore the eighteenth-century poet Tarigonda Veṅgamāmba’s Telugu retelling of this story found in her Veṅkaṭācala Māhātmyamu. This version of the story spends time not only describing the ascetic practices of the goddess Lakṣmī, but also exploring the domestic tensions that developed as a result of her separation from Viṣṇu. Through analysis of a prolonged discussion about the roles of wives and women, the third presenter argues that Vengamamba considers the possibility of a woman’s ability to simultaneously commit to asceticism and marriage. Further, because this conversation occurs between Lakṣmī and Kapila (a renounced sage, and an incarnation of Viṣṇu), the third presenter reads their conversation as a kind of meta-textual commentary on the narrative.

The fourth paper explores the narrative popularly known as the Vetala Tales, which has unknown origins and prolific variations including four Sanskrit recensions and several regional linguistic variations. In more recent times, the Vetala Tales have taken the form of children’s stories in Amar Chitra Katha comics and Chandamama magazines, two televised serials, at least three films (with a fourth in the making), and innumerable adaptations in print, including a Vikram and Vetala management training manual. In this paper, the fourth presenter asks two questions pertaining to this narrative: What makes this narrative possess such lasting influence and popularity? Secondly, why is a didactic narrative about ethics presented with the stylings of horror? The fourth presenter will explore two modern adaptations of the Vetala Tales to answer these questions – the long-running serialized children’s stories in the Chandamama magazines (specifically English and Tamil), and Ramanand Sagar’s Hindi television serial Vikram aur Betaal (1985) telecast on Doordarshan.