Somadeva : "The Red Lotus of Chastity"

BLOG ASSIGNMENT: In a considerable amount of literature from many different cultures and from many different periods, the heroine disguises herself in order to perform some unusual task, often related to saving her husband or beloved. Discuss the role of disguise in “Somadeva.” Focus on women’s disguises, particularly how disguises move them toward their desired goals. What might this reveal about the nature of relationships between women and men as represented in this story?

     The Kathāsaritsāgara is a famous 11th-century collection of Indian legends and folk tales compiled and composed by the Brahmin, Somadeva. The selected story reviewed from the Kathāsaritsāgara is called “The Red Lotus of Chastity”. Thematically the ability to transform is related to the direct metaphysical connection between god(s) and man in the Hindu religion. In religious texts, legends, and folk lore the function of transformation is often presented as an expression of multifaceted anthropomorphism.  The ability to effectively disguise one’s identity directly corresponds with this thematic function of transformation.

      In “The Red Lotus of Chastity” the function of disguise plays an important role throughout the story and effective disguise is an ability reserved for the female characters within the story. The story is about the protagonist Devasmita maintaining her chastity in her husband’s absence despite the ill intentions of several young men and their co-conspiring ally (the nun). Devasmita uses her inventive intelligence to transform her situation. This is a clear message throughout the story that the ability for a person to maintain their moral standards is within one’s power despite the obstacles that may stand in their way.

     The use of female disguise throughout “The Red Lotus of Chastity” and also in the nested tales within the story of Siddhikari and Saktimati predominantly revolve around interactions with male merchants. The female characters within the stories use disguise to either get the upper hand on a merchant, to set right the deceiving actions of a merchant, or in the case of Devasmita it is her husband’s entry into the merchant class that sets up the turmoil of the story which is furthered by Devasmita’s forced interactions with a merchant’s conniving sons. In the essay “The Merchant in Ancient India”  Balkrishna Govind Gorkhale (1977) writes that the “figure of the merchant in the literature of ancient India flits about in somewhat of a twilight zone…the merchant is placed into the category of disreputable” untrustworthy “groups” but whose  “operations are considered essential to society at large” (125). The deceptive but necessary view of the merchant is represented in the stories and corresponding nested tales. The function of disguise highlights the intent to counter the untrustworthiness of the merchant group with the matched cunning/deception necessary in order to do so. The fact that the use of disguise is reserved for female characters within the stories maintains the essential role of the merchant group who are not threateningly challenged by males (which would devalue the essential societal role of the merchant) but rather brought to some kind of justified ownership for their actions through the perceived unthreatening actions of female characters.

     The use of disguise in “The Red Lotus of Chastity” defines the importance of the concept of transformation to Hindu beliefs and early Indian society. The function of disguise plays an important role in defining the merchant group as both disreputable but also essential to society. By reserving the use of disguise for strictly female characters the merchant class remain unchallenged in their essential role but are still defined as a disreputable group in society. Disguise also plays an important role in the idea that a person is capable of maintaining their moral standards despite the disruption of negative influences/forces.  

Works Cited

Gokhale, Balkrishna G. “The Merchant in Ancient India.” Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 97, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1977), pp. 125-130

Somadeva. “The Red Lotus of Chastity.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin            Puchner. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013.