English Studies Journal | Graphic Retellings of Durga Mythology in Contemporary Popular Culture

The IUP Journal of English Studies :

Graphic Retellings of Durga Mythology in Contemporary Popular Culture

Article Details

Pub. Date	:	Mar, 2016
Product Name	:	The IUP Journal of English Studies
Product Type	:	Article
Product Code	:	IJES11603
Author Name	:	Sugandha Sehgal
Availability	:	YES
Subject/Domain	:	English Studies
Download Format	:	PDF Format
No. of Pages	:	7

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Abstract

According to Shakti tradition in Hindu religious and philosophical thought, the ultimate reality of the cosmos is an all-pervading female spiritual energy that fills the cosmos, a female manifestation of the Supreme Being—‘Shakti.’ With the composition of the classical Sanskrit text Devi Mahatmyam by sage Markandeya in the sixth century, the worship of the female principle assumed new dimensions. This paper focuses on the mythological metanarrative of the Goddess with the aim of exploring the curious intersections between Hindu mythology and a cosmopolitan modernity as reflected in a select few comics of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century India. Taking Anant Pai’s Tales of Durga (Amar Chitra Katha) as the starting point, the paper explores the modernist appropriations of traditional Devi mythology in three works—Ganesh’s (2002) Tales of Amnesia, Virgin Comics’ Kali (2007), and Priya’s Shakti (2014)—and shows that a serious comics culture has arrived in India, turning the comics medium into a vehicle for social dialogue and cultural critique.

Description

According to Shakti tradition in Hindu religious and philosophical thought, the ultimate reality of the cosmos is a feminine principle. The ‘peerless splendor,’ that is the Goddess, as described in the epigraph above, is an all-pervading female spiritual energy that fills the cosmos. ‘Shakti,’ when translated, means divine energy, a female manifestation of the Supreme Being. The epigraph describes the moment of the creation of Goddess Durga, as delineated in a classical sixth century Sanskrit text called the Devi Mahatmyam. Composed by sage Markandeya, Devi Mahatmyam remains one of the pivotal texts of Shakti philosophy. Literally meaning “glory of the Goddess,” it is one of the first comprehensive accounts of the Goddess to have appeared in Sanskrit (Coburn 1991).1 Furthermore, Dehejia and Coburn (1999) aver that with this text, the worship of the female principle took on dramatic new dimensions.

Keywords

English Studies Journal, Graphic Retellings, Durga, Mythology, Hindu religious, philosophical, Taking Anant Pai’s Tales of Durga (Amar Chitra Katha), Priya’s Shakti, Ganesh’s, Mahisasuramardini, Culture.