‘Inside this membrane is Us. Beyond the membrane, Them’: Spatiality in Amruta Patil and Devdutt Pattanaik’s Aranyaka: Book of the Forest

Abstract

Forests have always occupied a significant position as places of exile, transformation and retreat in the epics, myths and folklores that are popular in India. A journey into the forest, as depicted in most of these narratives, is often deployed as a metaphor for epistemological pursuits and also symbolizes a peregrination into the subconscious or the inner self. The graphic novel Aranyaka: Book of the Forest (2019) is a joint creative venture by the Indian graphic novelist Amruta Patil and mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik, in which they borrow a thin thread of the story from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and weave layers of Puranic tales, Vedic philosophy, feminist perspectives and ecological consciousness to create a rich tapestry of metaphors and meanings. Aranyaka (‘of the forest’) is a graphic retelling of the life of the Indian sage Yajnavalkya, his wives, Katyayani and Maitreyi, and of his disciple, Gargi. The forest is not a mere exotic location or an ideal backdrop in which the story of the sage and the three women unfolds. As the title denotes, the forestscape assumes a central role in this graphic narrative and hence it is pertinent to looking into how the forest shapes and is shaped by the narrative. The article hence proposes that the forest is imagined and visualized as a heterotopia in this graphic text. It brings Yajnavalkya’s unscholarly wife Katyayani to the forefront and weaves a story through her words and imagination. The article also strives to foreground the liminal and gendered spaces represented in the narrative. The article therefore offers a critical reading of Aranyaka and explores the spatial dimensions represented in it.