Humanly Gods or Godly Humans: Representation and Anthropomorphism of Mythical Characters in Amish Tripathi’s Shiva Trilogy

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyse the representation of mythical characters in the three novels by Amish Tripathi, namely The immortals of Meluha, The secret of the Nagas and The oath of the Vayuputras. The protagonist is a human being, Shiva, whose bildungsroman through the trilogy transforms him into a God, but without actually changing any of his physical attributes. Thus, at the level of anthropomorphism, this method of representation sheds light on the humane aspect of the divinity. From a perspective of feminist understanding of disability, the character of Kali would be studied, as an initial outcast to an important character in the last two books. Thus, this paper would conclude that Tripathi attempts at a vision of inclusivity, by his clever techniques of the representation of the disabled and the divine alike.

Full text

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24113/ijohmn.v6i1.162
Humanly Gods or Godly Humans: Representation and
Anthropomorphism of Mythical Characters in Amish Tripathi’s Shiva
Trilogy
Aritra Basu
MPhil Research Scholar
University of Delhi
Delhi, India
basuaritra16@gmail.com
Abstract
This paper attempts to analyse the representation of mythical characters in the three novels by
Amish Tripathi, namely The immortals of Meluha, The secret of the Nagas and The oath of the
Vayuputras. The protagonist is a human being, Shiva, whose bildungsroman through the trilogy
transforms him into a God, but without actually changing any of his physical attributes. Thus,
at the level of anthropomorphism, this method of representation sheds light on the humane
aspect of the divinity. From a perspective of feminist understanding of disability, the character
of Kali would be studied, as an initial outcast to an important character in the last two books.
Thus, this paper would conclude that Tripathi attempts at a vision of inclusivity, by his clever
techniques of the representation of the disabled and the divine alike.
Keywords: Anthropomorphism, Disability, Myth, History, Marginalisation.

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The larger-than-life representation of characters with a divine prospect has been the
signature move of Indian epics, legends, Vedas and Upanishads. While some of them were
born out of a union between a God and a human, others were avatars or versions of Gods
themselves. There are several versions of the same narrative, told from various perspectives,
which somewhat correspond to Linda Hutcheon’s definition of historiographic metafiction,
which is “still committed to telling a long and involving story, full of believable characters
which can be enjoyed by the readers in the manner of nineteenth century realism.” (Nicol 99)
Thus, representation is problematized at its very source, and that is what is exploited by Amish
Tripathi in his bestselling Shiva trilogy.
Extending the argument presented in the essay entitled ‘Giving voice to the
marginalised: A study of Amish Tripathi’s The immortals of Meluha’, this paper would try to
shed some light on the representation of the marginalised characters as opposed to the
representation of the divine entity, Shiva. One important thing to note in this context, namely,
that the disabled characters of Kali and Ganesh are introduced to us only in the second book of
the trilogy. Though the first book has ample mention of the Nagas or the Vikarmas (the
polluted), the main characters from the former category take some time to find proper
representation. Thus, the marginalised voices increase as the trilogy traverses towards fruition,
in terms of the character of the Vikarma, Sati, in the first book, Kali and Ganesh in the second
book and all of them together in the third book, occupying the centre stage.
Amish Tripathi in his bestseller Shiva trilogy explores this grey area and tries to break
the divine jargon, slicing it into pieces small enough for undereducated or culturally unaware
readers with little or no knowledge of mythology proper to understand. The light which was
cast by Roland Barthes in his book Mythologies, highlighting the importance of society and the
then contemporary social values in the creation and sustenance of myths, also helps a great deal
to understand the stance that Amish takes. For the avid reader, who has the basic knowledge

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of Indian mythology from the two very basic epics of the land The Ramayana and The
Mahabharata, this series of books starts off as mildly disturbing, as it voyages on lands never
dwelt in basic ancient Indian mythology. However, as the narrative progresses, interest slowly
seeps in as the reader finally understands that what Amish is trying to depict is not the history,
but an alternative version of history. He wants to challenge the historiographic authenticity of
said myths and goes ahead to interpret and mould them in his own indigenous way to create a
new narrative with identifiable characters.
The very introductory page of the Shiva trilogy reads, “What if Lord Shiva was not a
figment of rich imagination, but a person of flesh and blood? Like you and me. A man who
rose to become godlike because of his karma. This is the premise of the Shiva trilogy, which
interprets the rich mythological heritage of ancient India, blending fiction with historical fact.”
Thus, from the very outset we are introduced to a figure who is a human being, before anything
else. However, within the first chapter, the representation of Shiva gains an added advantage
over that of the other characters. Several myths and legends from the epics, Vedas and
Upanishads have been interpreted and modified in their own ways. For instance, Shiva’s
famous name Neelkanth has been given a different pretext and context, notwithstanding the
story of the churning of the oceans as described in Indian mythology. In the book, in the very
first chapter, a particular liquid was offered to the Guna tribe once they reached the city of
Srinagar by Ayurvati, the chief of medicine. As a result, the entire tribe suffers from high fever
and sweating, except Shiva, whose throat turned blue as a result of that incident. Finding that
an age old prophecy has come true, the Meluhans declare Shiva as their saviour against the
Chandravanshis who have teamed up with the deformed Nagas to take possession of whatever
little water was left of the river Saraswati.
The ancient Indian culture of untouchability also finds mention in the very first book
of the trilogy. Shiva instantly feels attracted to Sati, but learns that she is a Vikarma, a kind of

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people considered untouchable. The fact that she cannot be loved or touched, let alone married
was so deeply ingrained in her psyche that even when Shiva made advances towards her, he
was greeted with great belligerence. However, Shiva steps up to the occasion and declares
himself as the Neelkanth and promises to eradicate all such kind of prejudices. It is in this book
we see that in ancient India, gender discrimination was not such big an issue as it is today, as
both man and woman train to dance and fight, without being judged for either. The most
significant part of appropriation of myths comes towards the end of the novel, when the
Chandravans his get furious at seeing the Neelkantha and claim that their race was the one who
were supposed to be delivered by the Neelkanth and not their rivals the Suryavanshis. This part
of the narrative highlights how people generally misinterpret myths and legends according to
their own ways. One is reminded of Joan Kelly Gadol’s essay ‘Did Women have a
Renaissance’, where by extension, the entire existence of the Renaissance has been questioned,
because as Kelly argues, it was, like a lot of other things, an eighteenth century construct by
Europe in general and England in particular to establish its superiority over its colonies.
The first book of the Shiva Trilogy, The Immortals of Meluha, starts off with an
adventure in the land of Meluha, and the subsequent departure of Shiva and his friends from
Tibet to Meluha, the near perfect empire created many centuries ago by Lord Ram where he is
meant to fulfil his destiny. Starting from an ordinary human being with distinctive qualities of
leadership, a strong personality, this series charts the growth of Shiva from a human being to a
deity. Thus, deification becomes paramount of importance in this narrative. We see his
followers chant “Om namah Shivay”, something which is essentially associated with gods. As
the story progresses, he gains the title of Mahadev or the supreme divine. During the time of
battle, the inspirational leader in him awakens and he shouts out to his troops “Har Har
Mahadev”, meaning that every single soldier of the army is Mahadev and can fight just as
ferociously and fearlessly as Mahadev himself, reminding the readers of communism.

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The thin line of difference between history, myth, legend and fiction is completely
blurred by Amish, as he anthropomorphises the character of Lord Shiva to begin with and then
goes on to do the same to other known figures of Indian mythology, like Goddess Kali, Durga,
Lord Ganesh and many others. He brings home controversy from staunch believers when he
portrays Lord Ganesh as a physically deformed child who had been abandoned by his parents
and Goddess Kali as the not-so-presentable sister of Durga, or as she is called here, Sati, who
in her time was abandoned by her parents. Devdutt Pattanaik from The Tribune commented
that “the writer takes us on a sinister journey with the characters, who frequently sound as if
they are one of us only”. The characters are essentially humane, they have flaws, emotions and
urges. However, in this bildungsroman of Shiva the protagonist, Amish also intertwines the
subtext of contemporarisation. Standing in the twenty-first century, it is getting more and more
difficult for teachers, scholars and critics alike to get students interested in Indian myths,
legends and stories as the Postcolonial hangover, instead of waning away, spread its giant legs
into every nook and corner of our third world academia. Amish thus chooses the road of fiction
to tell a story which is popular, but to make it more palatable he tactically brings in essentially
modernist concepts like the question of identity, existentialism, alienation and many more
things. He also does not forget to include clichés from the classics like destiny, love and very
obviously, conflict.
In the second book of the Shiva Trilogy, The Secret of the Nagas, Amish continues the
story of Shiva, but along with destabilising popular myths about Gods and Goddesses, Amish
also shows most of them as human beings, thus highlighting the humanitarian aspect of the
deities. Lord Ganesh is shown to be a child born with deformities and thus an outcast. Thus,
Amish brings in aspects such as societal ‘otherisation’ within a mythical narrative. Besides
providing historians with a different perspective on events from the myths, it also shows the
universality and versatility of them, interpreting and moulding them into his very own

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narratives. In a recent review of the book written for a blog in the WordPress website, it is said:
“There is some nuanced wisdom in this book. Wisdom that Amish could have captured in
beautiful ways, but he couldn’t. This is where the flaw lies. Given that this book is based on
age-old stories that have come to us because of their indestructible nature, one would hope to
have bursts of takeaways. Alas, his writing fails him here. Nonetheless, I loved the portion
where Shiva’s uncle explains to him how he is not responsible for other people’s karma, only
his karma. There are umpteen events where the book says that evil is just another side of a coin.
In fact, the way Shiva uncovers the truth of why people do what they do explains why we
should never judge a person.”
The occasional adherence to the grand narratives on and of mythologies in India finds
the best example in this book when the son of Shiva and Sati, Kartick, is born. According to
almost all the popular and known mythologies, Kartick was known to be the better looking and
better ‘deserving’ son of the two. Here too, before the arrival of Ganesh, he is shown to be
born, though it is revealed later that Ganesh is, in fact, older than him by quite some margin.
The alter ego of Sati, in the form of her twin sister Kali, also makes her first appearance in this
book. Their father, Daksha, abandoned her at childbirth and then abandoned sati’s son Ganesh
at childbirth too, because both of them were deformed to a great degree. This reveals to the
readers the fact that the father, in spite of being a powerful man, chose to abide by the norms
and rules laid down by society, and it took someone as powerful, independent and almost
literally ‘divine’ like Shiva to actually try and break those norms to establish equality in the
truest sense of the term, at least in the society in which he lives. The second half of the book
shows a true change in the ladder of hierarchy as Shiva gets Daksha to admit that he had
murdered Sati’s first husband and had abandoned the two children at different points of time.
Knowing this, he orders Daksha to leave them and go back to Meluha while he finally
reconciles with his full family after much turmoil and complications. What is significant here

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is the fact that Shiva belonging to a rank of military as well as sovereign inferiority than Daksha
actually orders the latter to do something, which is in turn obeyed. This reveals to us the fact
that even the deluded king has accepted the fact that the divine lord is above all the rules and
chains of this earth, as he submits to the former’s power, assertion and righteousness.
While the Meluhans’ attitude towards the disabled reflected an adherence to the
religious model of disability, where they thought that any kind of deformity was a result of past
sins; the attitude of Daksha was more akin to the social model, wherein he tried to outcast the
disabled child Kali, and Sati’s disabled child, Ganesh. These disabled people, known as the
Nagas, formed a separate group of outcasts who were later brought back to the mainstream by
Shiva. Thus, Tripathi, surely but subtly, brings forth issues about disability and its
representation at a time when it was still to gain currency in India. The moment the secret about
the identity of Kali is revealed, “Then listen, oh exalted Princess. I am your twin sister, Kali.
The one whom your two-faced father abandoned” is immediately reminiscent of Susan
Wendell’s essay. ‘Towards a feminist theory of disability’. Where Wendell says,
“This theory should be feminist, because more than half of disabled people are women
and approximately 16% of women are disabled, and because feminist thinkers have
raised the most radical issues about cultural attitudes to the body. Some of the same
attitudes about the body which contribute to women's oppression generally also
contribute to the social and psychological disablement of people who have physical
disabilities. In addition, feminists are grappling with issues that disabled people also
face in a different context: Whether to stress sameness or difference in relation to the
dominant group and in relation to each other; whether to place great value on
independence from the help of other people, as the dominant culture does, or to question
a value-system which distrusts and de-values dependence on other people and
vulnerability in general; whether to take full integration into male dominated/able-

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bodied society as the goal, seeking equal power with men/able-bodied people in that
society, or whether to preserve some degree of separate culture, in which the abilities,
knowledge and values of women/the dis-abled are specifically honoured and
developed.” (Wendell 3)
Thus, this book promises to build on this proposition of a feminist theory of disability, by
giving Kali the centre-stage for this book and the next, and by proving that she deserves
equality irrespective of her gender or her physical form.
The last book of the trilogy, The Oath of the Vayuputras, completes the story and ends
with a universal message that weapons of mass destruction (the Bramhastra here) are always
deplorable and best if avoided. The book starts off with an issue which is very relevant in the
modern day discourse of resources and their consequent misuse, in the form of misuse of the
water of river Saraswati to create somras for the people of Meluha. Brahaspati points this out
to Shiva and the latter responses like any sensible man from twenty first century would, which
makes the text even more appealing. This blend of the two frames of time is brought about
almost perfectly by Amish, which makes his books an ideal choice for such a detailed analysis
of mythology and their contemporarisation It shows that how love can blind even someone
who has, over due course of time, been transformed into nothing less than a God. Indian
mythology showcases the Gods as flawless in most of the cases, but this series tries to show
that there is a flip side to that coin, through alternative representation. Like the tragic hero,
Shiva also falls prey to hubris, and thus the representation of the divine being completes a full
circle as he comes back to the realm of the humans again, after making a grave mistake.

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Works Cited
Tripathi, Amish. The immortals of Meluha. Chennai, Westland Ltd., 2010.
---The Secret of the Nagas. Chennai, Westland Ltd., 2011.
---The oath of the Vayuputras. Chennai, Westland Ltd., 2013.
Nicol, Bran. The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Fiction. New York, Cambridge
University Press, 2009.
Pattanaik, Devdutt. Tribune Daily Interview, 19 September 2010.
Gadol, Joan K. Did Women have a Renaissance? in Women, history and theory: The Essays
of Joan Kelly. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Wendell, Susan. Towards a Feminist Theory of Disability, Hypatia, Vol. 4, 2nd ed., 1989.
pp.104-124.
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Translated by Annette Lavers. New York, The Noonday
Press, 1972.
Web Source
Bookhad, The Secret of the Nagas - Review, Bookhad, 2011. Accessed 10 June 2019.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/bookhad.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/the-secret-of-the-nagas-
review/amp/