Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man

By U.R. Ananthamurthy

Book Overview

Samskara is one of the acknowledged masterpieces of modern world literature, a book to set beside Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North . Taking its name from a Sanskrit word that means "rite of passage" but also "moment of recognition," it begins when Naranappa, an inhabitant of a small south Indian town and a renegade Brahmin who has scandalously flouted the rules of caste and purity for years, eating meat, drinking alcohol, marrying beneath him, mocking God, unexpectedly falls ill and dies. The question of whether he should be buried as a Brahmin divides the other Brahmins in the village. For an answer they turn to Praneshacharyah, the most devout and respected member of their community, an ascetic who also tends religiously to his invalid wife. Praneshacharyah finds himself unable to provide the answer, though an answer is urgently needed since as he wonders and the villagers wait and the body festers, more and more people are falling sick and dying. But when Praneshacharyah goes to the temple to seek a sign from God, he discovers something else entirely--unless that something else is also God. Samskara is a tale of existential suspense, a life-and-death encounter between the sacred and the profane, the pure and the impure, the ascetic and the erotic.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590179129
• ISBN13: 9781590179123
• Release Date: January 2017
• Publisher: New York Review of Books
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

A Masterpiece

There are two outstanding features of this book. The first being brilliant storytelling. The tale is a critical look at the life style of the "upper classes" of Hindu society during the early part of the twenthieth century. The plot is deftly interwoven with Hindu philosophy and the result is quite remarkable. The second feature is the tralsation. Having read the original Kannada version, I found the traslation to be very lucid . This is a must read for everyone familiar to the the Indian social setup and also for those who are interested in getting introduced to it.

Excellent

Mr. Murthy's book is delicately told, with exquisite attention to detail. I did one of the inside jacket illustrations for a book of his when I was six, and have liked the man and his work ever since. Look for the new Penguin Paperback of his, _Bhava_ (co-translated by my mom... OK, so I am unfairly partial to his work). Read it and decide.

Excellent symbolic story

I was not excited when I learned that I had to read this for my Religion 1 Class at Dartmouth College because it looked long and boring. In reality, it was a gripping story that ranks up there with the greats. And if you liked Hesse's Siddhartha, you'll like this too.

A great piece of work

A wonderful translation of a outstanding book from its Kannada original. The book traces events in an orthodox Brahmin village in Karnataka. It gently and very sensitively pokes holes in the close mindedness that has typified the so called higher castes in India. The book was writen in the 1960s, but remains relevant today. Accompanied by an outstanding glossary (it is worth buying the book just to read the glossary).

Samskara is a spiritual discovery for the reader, too!

Samskara is a book about a village of Brahmins in India. One man, Praneshacharya, is considered to be the 'holiest' of men. Chaos enters everyone's lives when a very unpopular and 'unholy' Brahmin unexpectedly dies. There is a definite comic element throughout the novel but the consequences of the petty arguing and greed of this colony of Brahmin are quite severe. Throughout it all, Praneshacharya continues on his own journey of spiritual growth. Samskara is simple in language, although full of characters with very similar names. Beneath the simplicity of the language, there is a profundity and complexity of thought, metaphor, and analogy that I never tire of rereading.