Pandanus ’15: Nature in Literature, Art, Myth and Ritual

Film adaptations of literature are usually seen as a form of pauperization, or even vulgarization of the original work, and the value of film is usually determined by its coherence with the text. However, sometimes the cinematic version of a novel allows filmmakers to create their own legendary work, which can even outshine the original text, as happened with Devdas written by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Since there have been several films based on the novel, produced continuously from the silent film era to contemporary times, some of them already have canonical status. Interestingly, this position seems to have been gained not only through their faithfulness to the text, which is a very remarkable phenomenon, showing that a successful adaptation must be something more than a simple illustration of the book. The following presentation of four Hindi films based on Devdas discusses the co-relation of the environment with the emotions of the novel’s protagonist. The use of nature is an example of a strategy which, being the invention of a skilful film director, has become almost an obligatory feature expected by an audience today.

The Somavallīyogānanda of Aruṇagirinātha Diṇḍima is one of the many unpublished prahasanas, dated approximately to the 15th century CE. Although it cannot be considered a dignified example of the comic genre compared to the first testimonies, this work presents many elements of lively interest. After an examination of the details connected with Diṇḍima, an almost unknown author of theatre and poetry, the paper will offer first impressions after a preliminary reading of some verses. The few examined portions concern the representation of the dawn at the beginning of the farce; an analysis of several natural images will be presented, their contents and structure, from which some considerations about Aruṇagirinātha’s poetry and his descriptive skills will be offered.

Literary representations of the coconut palm in Old Javanese court poetry are analyzed. First, pronounced erotic symbolism of nuts, pervasive in poems, is discussed. In what is clearly a literary cliché, nuts, especially a variety called in the texts “dwarf/ivory nuts” are likened to a woman’s breasts. Second, the coconut palm is represented as a plant element typical of the seashore environment, its natural habitat, as well as of remote, oft en small, villages in the Javanese interior. It is argued that this image reflects the fact that the coconut palm, propagated sexually, cannot travel inland without the human agency, and that harvesting of the coconut palms may have been an important, if not dominant, element of remote inland settlements that relied on the palm economy rather than on rice cultivation.

It gives us an interesting glimpse into in “imagined” ancient Java, where palm economy may have represented a backbone of local economy. Third, this dignified status of the coconut palm, all but forgotten now, is further emphasized in a couple of literary images where the palm is represented as one of the divine, “celestial” trees, growing in heavenly gardens.

Toru Dutt (1856–1877) composed a number of poems that her father found quite by chance after her death and published as Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan.

In a series of three papers (of which this is the first one) I propose to discuss nature in those poems and in the letters written by Toru to her only close friend, Mary Martin, an English woman. Both the Letters and the Ballads show very clearly Toru’s passionate interest in the world of flora and fauna. Toru appears in fact literally immersed in a luxuriant natural universe, a truly living world which for her is in turn a refuge and a place for private reflection and inner discourse. This natural world is for this poet a means to experience detachment from the sullied “civilized” world of the town, while at the same time, it offers her a space for the nostalgic memories of a life full of activity and commitment. Indeed, Baugmaree Garden (the Dutts’ country residence), and its “inhabitants” represent for Toru a hortus conclusus, a mindscape and an outer landscape, fit for meditation and poetic creation, for pining and rejoicing. In its natural vital cycle, flora is for Toru a constant memento of the transitory character of existence, offering at the same time proof of a cyclic rebirth. In the following First part I shall present a brief critical introduction to the life, times, and work of the Bengali writer (Section 1), and a description of the flora as it appears in the Letters (Section 2). The Second part will deal with the analysis of fauna in Toru’s Letters; the Third, and last, part will be dedicated to the examination of the natural elements in her Ballads.