‘니랄라’의 「람 끼 샥띠-뿌자」(람의 샥띠-숭배)에 관한 연구 - 인도 람-이야기(람-까타)의 근대적 재해석 관점에서-

Abstract

Rāma Kī Śakti-Pūjā written by Sūryakānta Tripāṭhī Nirālā, one of the representative poets of Indian Romanticism has been highly esteemed in the history of Indian poetry and belongs to the rich and various Rāma-Story tradition. Rāma-Story has been continuously reinterpreted transcending the times, societies, communities, countries and so on, since the advent of the Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki around the 4th BC. Rāma Kī Śakti-Pūjā dealt in this article is a modern Rāma-Story reinterpreted according to the arisen necessity of the time and society in modern India. Nirālā’s reinterpretation of Rāma-Story focused on the creation of the image of modern man reflected in the hero of the Rāma-Story. The image of modern man reflected in Rāma has two facets, one is of an imperfect human being with his inner conflicts depicted repeatedly from the 1st to 10th stanzas and an ideal image of modern perfect man (Puruṣotam) depicted only in the 11th stanza. Nirālā gave prominence to Rāma as an imperfect human being with his inner conflicts. He was keen to bring the realities of modern man to the light by depicting the various aspects of inner conflicts of Rāma repeatedly. Ultimately he emphasized the inner strength of each and every individual for the elimination of the factors of inner conflicts of modern man, which clearly showed his awareness of the modern era. The importance of freedom of the individual was manifested in the self-expression in the romantic poems of India. The freedom of Sitā, Rāma’s wife kidnapped by Ravana, meant the freedom of individual. So to speak, Sitā can be considered as the symbol of the values of the modern era while Ravana as the values of the feudal age and society. The freedom of Sitā is meaning not only the freedom of individual from the feudal values oppressing the individual, but also the freedom from the British imperial rule fostering feudal values for the convenience of the colonial governance. Nirālā implied that the inner strength of the individual can not be increased to infinity by the traditional values such as Dharma, Karma. Instead he chose the worship of Shakti with Hatha Yoga as the symbolic device to make the inner strength of the individual infinite in order to attain Shakti which was on the side of injustice. In conclusion, Nirālā has successfully presented the image of modern man who recognized the inner strength of the individual and struggled for the realization of modern values against the society prevailing feudal values under the atmosphere of supporting the colonial rule. Rāma Kī Śakti-Pūjā can be evaluated as a modern Rāma-Story to satisfy the spirit of new era and the demands of the changing Indian society.