The Death of Karna: Two Sides of a Story

Abstract

This article compares two different Asian theatre traditions: kuittu from the northern parts of Tamil Nadu and wayang wong from Central Java. Both kinds of theatre represent independent performance traditions. They use the stories from the Mahdbhdrata as a basis for their plots but include a number of local elements. We will compare the exposition of a famous theme from the Mahdbhdrata epic, the death of the hero Karna, in the kittu and wayang wong traditions. Our aim here is not to establish whether one tradition influenced the other nor whether the classical written versions of the story (such as the Karnaparvan of the Sanskrit Mahdbhdrata, the literary Tamil versions, or the Old Javanese Bharatayuiddha poem) influenced the basically oral performance traditions. Rather, this is merely a pilot study in which we try to establish the variations in the exposition of a theme and relate these variations to their respective performance contexts. Our study is based on independent research in traditional theatre forms conducted in South India by Hanne de Bruin between 1985 and 1989 and by Clara BrakelPapenyzen in Java between 1975 and 1988. Because the theme of Karna's death is a long and complex story involving one of the central themes of the final war between the one hundred Kaurava and the five Pandava brothers, we have decided to focus on one aspect of the theme: the characterization of Karna in the two theatrical traditions. Unlike Arjuna, who clearly belongs to the Pandavas, Karna has conflicting loyalties. Arjuna and Karna are both sons of Kunti.