Narration in Shiva Trilogy

          Myth has always given creative impetus to the authors over the ages. In this paper, the significance of the reworking of ancient Indian myths has been brought to attention.  In the current scenario, the retelling of Indian mythology in Indian Writing in English is gaining momentum among the contemporary audiences. Amish Tripathi a contemporary Indian writer established a unique identity for Indian Writing in English with his Shiva Trilogy. Amish is passionate about mythology, history and philosophy. His belief is that there are beauty and meaning in all world cultures and religions.  With the new generation of writers approaching mythology as an entity and a genre, mythology has grown in terms of content and form. The contemporary writers use the mythical framework in its complete form with historical settings, mythical characters and themes. In order to contain it within a larger framework epic narrative is inevitable. Amish Tripathi falls in line with this tradition.

Retelling of ancient mythology is a common practice in Indian Writing in English. Starting from the classical writer Raja Rao till the contemporary popular writer Amish Tripathi the traditional myths have been recast. The two great Indian epics The Mahabharata and The Ramayana are the rich storehouse of traditional myths and stories. Traditionally, the retelling of mythology involves assigning perspectives and meanings to the myths. On the other hand the new breed of contemporary Indian fictional writers like Ashok banker, Amish Tripathi and Ashwin Sanghi are modernising the myths to make it more relatable to the contemporary audiences. The critically acclaimed Amish’s Shiva Trilogy has revolutionised the Indian publishing industry.

The Indian literary market is dominated today by novels dealing with the mythical past. These novels often rework the Indian myths creatively to address contemporary concerns as well as eternal human issues. This reworking of mythological subject matter through new modes of expression has proved to be an effective strategy that connects one to the cultural past on the one hand and helps to assert the present cultural and socio-political identity on the other. This paper surveys some of today’s most popular Indian English texts to examine how the contemporary authors are reworking the Indian mythological subject matter to make significant expressions that are an essential part of the contemporary Indian literature in English.

         The trend of successful novels having mythological content started in 2003 with Ashok Banker’s bestselling eight-volume Ramayana Series. Many novels followed the tradition started by Banker and today, the novels that are retellings of the Indian mythological stories top the charts.  Amish Tripathi’s Shiva Trilogy is based on the reconstruction of several Indian mythical characters and stories drawn from The Ramayana, the Mahabharata and Shivapuran. For the philosophical arguments he has relied on the classical Sanskrit texts of the Vedas and Upanishads. The three books of the series are the sole proof of the skill of Amish in crafting different modes such as fantasy fiction, adventure and thriller fiction into the genre of mythology.  Among the texts considered, Amish Tripathis’s Shiva Trilogy is the most popular. It comprises of The Immortals of Meluha (2010), The Secret of the Nagas (2011) and The Oath of the Vayuputras (2013).