Revelation of Aestheticism through Meta-Narratives in some Bengali Bratakathas

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume V, Issue II, February 2018 | ISSN 2321–2705

“Revelation of Aestheticism through Meta-Narratives in some Bengali Bratakathas”

Sovan Sen

 DSB International Public School, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India

The term “ meta-narrative ” in this paper has been taken as “tales on tales”. In the field of critical theory and particularly in post-modernism, a meta-narrative is about narratives of historical meaning, experience or knowledge which offers a society legitimating through the anticipated completion of a master idea. But as this paper would take the word in a simplified sense, it is a kind of text which focuses on a particular group of texts including it and discusses about it. It largely influences the reader who reads it, the teller who tells it, as well as the audience who listens to it.

To enter into the very depth of the Bengali culture I have taken some Bengali Bratakathas or ritual tales as subject of enquiry in the context of chiefly the rural society. Mostly celebrated on those parts of the country the Bratakathas are seen as typical cases of Para-literature. Though Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Ashutosh Bhattacharyya, Sila Basak and many other creative writers and scholars have discussed quite a lot on such texts, this specific attempt of finding out the aesthetics of those Bratakathas and to locate the various maneuvers through which the joy of the beautiful things could be appreciated might be something novel.

The Bengali Bratakathas talk about ‘Bratas’ or rituals celebrated by both male and female, but especially females irrespective of categories like the rich and the poor, Brahmins and other castes, educated or otherwise. The bratas of all kinds are observed for the purpose of wish-fulfilments which can give the observants benefits according to their needs. These bratas are generally categorized into two major sections – shastriya and ashastriya. Shastriya ‘bratas’ are addressed to the major and well established gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon and scriptures like Siva, Vishnu, Brahma, Durga and so on. Those bratas are performed by the rituals done by the Brahmin priests chanting Sanskrit mantras, and the ashastriya bratas are performed chiefly by the women addressing to some non-scriptural gods and goddesses like Itu, Mangalchandi, Shasthi etc. They are performed with some home rituals in order to satisfy the above mentioned gods and goddesses and are quite unlike the conventional pujas of the shastriya bratas. Many of the bratakathas of both these kinds are directly derived from the epics, the Puranas or many other shastras.

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