The Use and Abuse of Knowledge: Exploring Power, Damnation and Redemption Across Caste and Gender in Girish Karnad's The Fire and the Rain

Girish Karnad’s plays are well connected with ancient Indian myths, legends and folk tales which form an intrinsic and indelible part of our culture. It is in these myths and folk tales that Karnad finds a vehicle of new vision for all the elemental passions and conflicts, and man’s eternal struggle for perfection. He sees myths as “a kind of collective historical consciousness that is conveyed through the oral traditions” (Mukherjee, intro 19) His play The Fire and the Rain, taken from a story narrated by the saint Lomash in the Vana Parva of The Mahabhararta occupies almost a peripheral position within the epic’s grand narrative and is also not a very famous one. However, it deals with Vedic rituals and sacrifices and raises extremely pertinent questions about the use and abuse of knowledge and the consequences of such misapplication of knowledge. Besides, it also concerns itself with how knowledge and power are intertwined with one another and how both contribute to the existing power dynamics of societal hierarchies. Karnad focuses on all these important aspects prevalent during the Vedic age while also dealing with the existing caste and gender prejudices. He provides us with an insight into how the right application of knowledge can lead us to the redeeming truth transcending all barriers of caste and gender, while misusing knowledge can bring damnation to the offender and his entire community.