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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part I About Theories and Philosophies
- Part II About Self
- Part III About Memory
- Chapter 4 The Cultural Scene: Allure of Tales in the Living Texts
- Chapter 5 Remembering Mahabharata: The Story Telling Time and the Time of the Story
- Chapter 6 Gendered Memories: The Heroine's Journey in Time
- Part IV About Interpretation
- Part V About Self, Memory and Interpretation
- Appendix I Tables
- Appendix II Interview Documents
- References
Chapter 4 - The Cultural Scene: Allure of Tales in the Living Texts
from Part III - About Memory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part I About Theories and Philosophies
- Part II About Self
- Part III About Memory
- Chapter 4 The Cultural Scene: Allure of Tales in the Living Texts
- Chapter 5 Remembering Mahabharata: The Story Telling Time and the Time of the Story
- Chapter 6 Gendered Memories: The Heroine's Journey in Time
- Part IV About Interpretation
- Part V About Self, Memory and Interpretation
- Appendix I Tables
- Appendix II Interview Documents
- References
Summary
If you want the bloom of youth and fruit of later years
If you want what enchants, fulfi lls, and nourishes,
If you want heaven and earth contained in one name –
I say Sakuntala and all is spoken.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, “Wilst du die Blute”The classic Sanskrit play Sakuntala by Kalidasa was a major source of inspiration for the German Romantic poet, Goethe, who was captivated by the complexity of the plot structure, the beauty of its imagery and, above all, the melding of earthly conduct and heavenly edicts (Miller, 1984). Stories cast a spell in the oral-based Indian culture, playing a unique role in the Indian ontology. Tales are the semiotic fields within which individuals make sense of their existence in the world. In turn, individual psyche also becomes the semiotic field where the tales get acted out. The engagement with the tales is precisely that – a play – like spinning tops at the street corner. Storytellers and listeners participate in spinning narratives to make them more vibrant, enticing other playmates to intensify the game. There is a great deal of preoccupation with the act of “storying” in India, as psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar observes:
The stories they hear (or see enacted in dramas and depicted in Indian movies), and the stories they tell are worked and reworked into the stories of their own lives. […]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Dialogics of Self, the Mahabharata, and CultureThe History of Understanding and Understanding of History, pp. 105 - 120Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2010