The Land and Landscape of India As Depicted In the Fictional Works of Raja Rao

Abstract

To an Indian the bond with the land is many faceted. There is his deep attachment to his ancestral property. No Indian will build a house without consecrating the land on which it is to be built. River, mountain and forest share this holiness. Bharatmatha-mother India is divine and protective, while the earth itself is identified with the Mother Goddess and called Bhumatha. Raja Rao uses all these personalized and legendary concepts of land in his writings. The Land and Landscape exert a powerful influence over Raja Rao. He turned to the Landscape of his country for the settings of his works. He extends the scope of land beyond the geographical. The Landscape thus transforms into a mindscape, India can be carried within the Indian. His Kanthapura, which is the tale of a village and many passages in The Serpent and the Rope, celebrate the land as holy. In addition, Raja Rao invests land with a complex cultural dimension that includes its intellectual and artistic heritage, its philosophy and history. In this sense, India becomes to him a concept beyond human space and time.