In the agrahara of Durvasapura, a settlement of Madhva Brahmins in Karnataka, a man named Naranappa dies of fever. He had defied every rule of his caste: he ate meat, drank, lived with a low-caste woman named Chandri and mocked the elders. Yet he was never formally expelled, so the question of who may cremate him becomes a scriptural puzzle while his body lies decaying in the heat.
The community turns to Praneshacharya, a celebrated scholar of the Vedas, admired for his austerity and his devotion to an invalid wife. He searches the sacred texts and finds no answer. The waiting breeds plague, greed and hypocrisy among the Brahmins, and Praneshacharya himself is shaken by an encounter that tests his long suppression of desire.
Published in 1965, the novel is short and densely symbolic; samskara can mean both a funeral rite and the shaping of the self. It became a landmark of the Kannada Navya movement, was filmed in 1970 amid controversy, and reached world readers through A. K. Ramanujan's 1976 English translation. It remains a sharp examination of orthodoxy, purity and the inner life of faith.
Book details
| Author | U. R. Ananthamurthy |
|---|---|
| First published | 1965 |
| Original language | Kannada |
| Translated by | A. K. Ramanujan |
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 140 |
| Setting | Durvasapura, a Brahmin agrahara in the Malnad region of Karnataka |
Themes
- Orthodoxy and rebellion
- Purity and pollution
- Desire and asceticism
- Caste
- Spiritual crisis
Who should read it
Readers wanting a compact, provocative novel about religious authority and individual conscience.