Myth and Reality in: Kanthapura :The novel rather than being traditional novel with a neat linear

structure and compact plot. KANTHAPURA follows the tradition of Indian sthalaPurana or legendary history .As Raja Rao explains in KANTHAPURA by the
imagery of village and villagers .Whole the text covered with myths and its reality
in every human life by one or anothers activities or by their works and virtue. It
may be a kind of superstition or blind faith on gods and goddesses. In other words,
we can say that the study of this text we undergoes in the concept of myths or in
mythical references. Their gods presented by the writer with ordinary mortals.
The writer very well uses the flash-back technique in the text,
when he gives a flash back of Achakka, a wise woman in the village. When the
story moves as a rider we came to know that she likes the female listeners or
followers and also she addresses her followers calling them with sisters. She has
survived the turbulence by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhis passive resistance
against British government.
Raja Rao established the parameters of the story within old and new
legends, which was strongly connected to the past and present life of the people.
Who lived in the rural community. The story moves, with political social, religious
issues with its existence in their past and present or in their historical
background.
In the book the narrator Achakka belongs to the past and
present. She is just one of the many women of Kanthapura who responded the call
of the Mahatma Gandhi conveyed through Moorthy. Her faith in the goddess
Kenchamma, her respect for Bangamma, her affection for Murthy and her trust in
him, all these feelings she shares with other woman, Achakka, mingles myth and
the fact which was found in her at length through her manner of observation and
reflection. Although Raja Rao has used the myth and reality artistically in the book
''Kanthapura'' through their religious background, their customs, attitudes, and also
through their beliefs about the religiosity.
In the novel, the Goddess Kenchamma presents the
historical myths in reality which affects the present time. In other words, we can
say that it depends on the past and present situation of all the human beings.

As the story reveals we found that Myth is to be defined

as a complex of stories-some no doubt fact, and some fantasy which, for various
reasons, human being regard as demonstration of the inner meaning of the universe
and of human life: according to Alan W.Watts. The rediscovery of mythology as
an encyclopedia of psychological types and universal emotions simulated writers
to take a new interest in the old myths, thus, making it essentially a twentieth
century phenomenon. Myth and legends are the quality of timelessness.
Myth is seen manifesting itself in two ways in literature, the
unconscious and conscious use of myth. There were many writers who used a
mythical situation. This kind of archetypal criticism claims descent from
anthropology and Jungs theory of archetypes and racial memory. The Indian
people are very close to their mythology than the modern European people are to
their own lords. Raja Rao uses the mythical parallel to extend the readers
understanding of the present situation. An Indian ethos and sensibility have
attempted to traditional forms of narratives in their works. Raja Rao was the first
inheritor of this tradition among Indian writers of English fiction. The
representation of the puranic tradition. The method of the writer refers to the old
tradition in narrative. According to Mircea Eliade: Even today people lived
unconsciously but obviously by the remains of perennial mythologies. In this
novel, Moorthy and Mahatma Gandhiji refers to the an idealized person or this
kind of manner, as the master position.
Whereas, in Kanthapura Jayramachar-the Harikathaman identifies
Gandhi with the Prince Rama resisting the demonic rule of Ravana. Thus, as the
reference shows the religious mindset of an old village people. How they think
about the Lord Rama and Mahatma Gandhiji. How they compare them to this
extent. And also I would like to say that somewhere Jayramachar found some
qualities in Gandhiji, which may be similar to the Lord Rama. An old grandmother
or the narrator of the story known as the myth-maker. So, the interwoven with the
religious things, macrocosm, microcosm, myth, social and political freedom, etc.
Kenchamma is the local goddess who protects the village
through famine and disease, death and despair. According to legend she protected
the village from the attack of a terrific monster who asked their songs for food and
the young women as wives this momentous refers to the peoples unconscious
mind. Thus, myths are religious rituals and all these rituals make our lives more
meaningful. In other words, these allusions and extensions of metaphors are the
aspects of Raja Raos rhetoric of fiction. In Kanthapura the mythological
characters and contemporary figures could have become more highlighted through
their past and present existence.
In the individualistic novel to express the
consciousness of the whole village in the collective we of the narrative voice of

Achakka. Raja Rao himself has said that in such structures, the past mingles with
the present, and the Gods mingle with men to make the repertory of your
grandmother always bright. The Indian freedom movement of the 1920s into a
reenactment of the Ravana-Sita and Rama myth and also the myth of Krishna. Raja
Raos use of myth enables him to contain Western exploitation as a moment in
illusory time where everything becomes a kind of MAYA in which Hindu
metaphysics has effectively phagocytosed Western invasion, Western history. This
is not only an exaggeration belied by the text but also a total misunderstanding of
Raos use of myth in the novel. He makes conscious use of myths and legends and
situates the novel in historical time, not in illusory time and space.
It is in this sense Rao uses myths and mythical
method because it provides a paradigm Gandhi comes as an AVATAR to destroy
ADHARMA or UNRIGHTEOUSNESS by killing the serpent of the foreign rule.
In the Gandhian fiction Kanthapura still enjoys the central position it truly
represents Gandhi and also the other side of the reality of the Gandhian myth.