num_pages: 176
description: Made into a powerful award-winning film in 1970 this important Kannada novel of the sixties has received widespread acclaim from both critics and general readers since its first publication in 1965. As a religious novel about a decaying brahmin colony in the south Indian village ofKarnataka Samskara serves as an allegory rich in realistic detail a contemporary reworking of ancient Hindu themes and myths and a serious poetic study of a religious man living in a community of priests gone to seed. A death which stands as the central event in the plot brings in its wake aplague many more deaths live questions with only dead answers moral chaos and the rebirth of one man. The volume provides a useful glossary of Hindu myths customs Indian names flora and other terms. Notes and an afterword enhance the self-contained faithful and yet readabletranslation.
language: English
title: Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man
publisher: Oxford University Press