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The Chausathi Yoginis of Hirapur: from Tantra to Tourism
₹200.00I had first visited Chausathi Yogini temple, Hirapur as a part of my professional work, to design a training program for the residents of the Hirapur village. A mild interest in the temple and the yoginis soon transformed itself into a mighty passion. The more I read and delved deep, the more intrigued I was. From Hirapur, Ranipur Jharial, Khajuraho, Morena to Cambodia and Indonesia, I have met the Yogini’s everywhere.
Initially I started with a song project dedicated to the Yoginis of Hirapur, my long-standing tryst with the Chausathi Yoginis, to be presented to them in the form of a song. The song took shape bit by bit, beginning under the patch of blue sky we could see from where we stood inside the hypaethral temple of Hirapur, the abode of the Yoginis. Several compositional techniques were used to evoke the essence of tantra music–tone painting, melodic phrasing, sequences, and rhythmic ostinati to create musical complements to meditation. The melody weaves the texture of a trance, helping in deepening the listeners insight. The use of traditional, authentic musical instruments further accentuated the experience. The vocal melody, mantric utterance, and rhythmic flow all were enmeshed to create the mysticism of the Yoginis.
Immediately after this, the book took shape. Based on my research and information I collected from museums in several places, I have tried to demystify the relatively unknown Chausathi Yoginis of Hirapur. Several rare aspects of this temple intrigued me. The Yogini Cult, Tantric in nature and tantra itself, projecting the efficacy of magical rituals and spell, sounds and gestures, is intertwined deeply with rural and tribal traditions. There is a diverse range of attitudes toward the tantric traditions, ranging from viewing it as a path to liberation to the relatively widespread associations of the tantric traditions with sorcery and libertine sexuality. In Hinduism, the tantra tradition is most often associated with its goddess tradition called Shaktism, followed by Shaivism and Vaishnavism. In this temple, every male deity except Shiva are replaced by a female counterpart including Ganesh all of them representing varied qualities. The Yoginis were believed to impart magical powers to their worshippers:
These powers included:
anima (the ability to become very small),
laghima (the power to levitate and to be able to leave your body at will),
garima (the power to become very heavy),
mahima (the power to become large in size),
istiva (the power to control the body and mind of oneself and others),
parakamya (the power to make others do your biding),
vasitva (the power to control the five elements) and kamavasayitva (the power to be able to fulfill all your desires) (Dehejia).According to the Archeological Survey of India the temple came to be known in 1953 (Mahapatra 1953).
This seems strange considering the proximity of the temple to the state capital Bhubaneswar. I have visited the temple uncountable times, mostly alone but often with friends and have enjoyed the quiet isolation that has been thrust upon not just this temple but the cult as well. The most beautiful Yogini temple among all, sixty three Yoginis are enshrined here. One statue is missing.
This book is a compilation of my research and readings on the Chausathi Yogini temple at Hirapur. This book was motivated by the desire to delve deeply into the tantric roots in which the Yogini cult is embedded and to link it to the significance of this site as a potential cultural tourism destination.
Dr. Adyasha Das, Author
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The Conquest of Kanchi: A Play
₹250.00The Conquest of Kanchi (1880) is the first play of Ramshankar Ray which was staged in 1881. It is based on the historic war between Gajapati Purushottam Dev, the illustrious king of the Surya dynasty of Odisha; and Saluva Narasimha Dev, the ruler of Kanchi. The play is foregrounded on the legend of romantic love between Gajapati King Purushottam Dev and Padmavati, the princess of Kanchi which led to the invasion of Kanchi and eventually their wedding. Ray has retained the legend of Lord Jagannath and Lord Balabhadra joining the battle, being entertained by the milkmaid Manika on the way to Kanchi and the minister’s ingenious efforts to unite the lovers in wedlock during Rath Yatra. Ray has adapted this glorious history of love and has added romance, heroism, conflict, excitement, war, suspense and surprise to transform it into an entertaining work of art. The play instantly won audiences’ hearts with its popular nationalistic theme and attractive presentation.
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The Criminal At Large
₹250.00THE CRIMINAL AT LARGE is a nontraditional story of feminism that attempts a definition of woman through a series of thrilling episodes narrated in an arresting style and language that keep the reader spell bound. Chhaya, the female protagonist in the process of becoming a woman experiences the impact of different male touches including that of brutal bestiality. She never gives in to anything; she challenges the legal system, asserts a prestigious social position commanding love and respect; yet the question about what she is remains unanswered.
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The Dance of the Ghost and Other Stories
₹350.00This book is a work of translation, from Odia to English, of a few short stories collected from the immense body of writings by eminent Odia writer Surendra Mohanty. Kaleidoscopic in nature, it exudes a multiplicity of themes including mythological, social, political and personal. The anthology contains tales based on Buddhist mythology, on episodes from the great Indian epic The Mahabharata while some others are based on personal, social and political themes. Some of them evoke personal emotions pertaining to the writer’s own life and re-enact episodes and events from his bygone past; the title-story “The Dance of the Ghost” is its prime example. On the other hand, a story like “Amrapalli” is based on the tragic life a significant and renowned historical persona by the same name whereas a story like “Srikrishna’s Last Laugh” centres around a less-known and almost forgotten episode of the illustrious Indian epic The Mahabharata. Contrary to the above-mentioned themes, a story like “The Miner” is entirely based on tribal life and culture while depicting the trials and tribulations of the old tribal protagonist who struggles desperately for his survival in the midst of relentless cultural decadence and corrosion. He is helplessly caught in the interstices of a changing time where his traditional culture is invaded by modernity and the world of pristine Nature in which he used to live is under the verge of complete annihilation due to the encroachment of corrosive modernist and industrial culture.
Thus, the book presents itself as a kaleidoscopic compendium of tales where stories of different themes, tastes and concerns are included in the anthology. This work is also an attempt on the translator’s part to make a regional author of eminence enter into the cosmopolitan arena of readership while enabling global readers to explore into the enormous and unexplored literary firmament of another region, of another culture, of another language. Expectedly, this work would form an enriching symbiosis between different cultures and knowledge systems, would bridge the gap between ensconced cultural and linguistic territories, would exchange knowledges and transfer ideas.
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The Dapples of Darkness
₹200.00A poetry collection by Bhagaban Jayasingh. Educated at Ravenshaw College and Allahabad University, Jayasingh is a celebrated Odia poet and a critic of eminence who writes both in Odia and English with equal ease and flourish. He has published seven volumes of poetry collections in Odia and five volumes of poetry in English translation. An academician by profession, Jayasingh lives in Puri.
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The Dark City and Other Stories
₹300.00I must now share with the audience some of my own experiences of translating Mohanty from Odia to English. It is famously said by eminent American poet Robert Frost that “Poetry is what is lost in translation”-a statement that is a clear indicator of how much difficult it is for the translator to carry the whole essence of the original text into the translated text. Each language is intrinsically embedded with certain cultural values and nuances specific to its own and which are perhaps untranslatable. Certain colloquial expressions, which Mohanty abundantly uses in his writing, are its best example. As a translator of Mohanty’s short stories, I have tried my level best to negotiate between two languages and two cultures that are perhaps diametrically opposite to each other. It must be understood however that absolute faithfulness to the original text and the original language is an impossibility.
Mohanty, in spite of his greatness and stature as a creative writer in Odia, can at times be accused of unwarranted verbosity though I do understand that a creative writer’s creative process has limitless dimensions. Translating wordy sentences and expressions may look a bit challenging, but it is also a pleasurable experience to simplify the clumsiness of certain expressions in the target language, that is English.
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The Dialogue of Yesterday
₹200.00My first collection of Poems titled “The Silence… Between Two Words” sees the profundity of darkness and banality of light between two pre-destined, immutable points called Life and Death. The characters, nay. Beings of my soul now clamour for space as has been their due under the Sun and the lap of Mother Earth. Being a liberal father, I have but to respect their sensibilities in the present Anthology. During the course of dialogue, they have questioned, interrogated, appropriated, negated and denied each and every on their way, the Established Canonical Text of yesteryears dictating thereby the discourse of present in particular to find out the kernel of truth and falsehood. They have assured in crystal clear premises and hyperboles to push me to the edge and ask the subtle differences between Creator and Created. The density and depth of my little understanding of life provokes me to seek the root of our existence, the dialectics of hope and despair, anguish and ecstasy. With utmost humility, my submission is that a dialogue of yore continues with singular vigour and vibrancy to the present moment when you read this foreword. A dialogue is ensued not to find out The Ultimate Reality, but to churn out alternative realities. I dedicate this book to the critically objective scrutiny and wisdom of my readers.
Dr. Ratikanta Mishra -
The Divine Solitude
₹350.00The Divine Solitudeis the English transcreation of “Aparthiba Nirjanata” by Dr. Harishchandra Behera, a celebrated voice in Odia poetry whose work moves effortlessly between myth and lived reality, devotion and dissent, intimacy and vastness. Translating these poems has been less an act of linguistic transfer and more a journey of listening-listening to silences, pauses, symbols, and the emotional undertow that carries the poem beyond words.
The poems gathered here inhabit a space where the earthly and the divine overlap: rivers remember motherhood, boats become lives, feet turn into lotuses, and solitude itself acquires a sacred resonance. Mythological figures-Rama, Ahalya, Vishwamitra, the ferryman, the flute of the Kadamba grove-are not distant icons but breathing presences, entering daily life, desire, doubt, and ethical questioning. This poetry does not merely retell myth; it interrogates it, softens it, humanizes it.
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The Exiled
₹450.00Ramshankar Ray’s Bibasini (1891), believed to be the second full length novel in Odia, the first being Umesh Chandra Sarkar’s Padmamali (1888), is a novel with an intricately woven plot structure written in style that is at once descriptive, informative, and lyrical. Viewed mostly as a work of fiction delicately poised between a historical romance and a socio-political narrative, Bibasini relates to the period of Maratha hegemony over Odisha spanning from 1751 till the British occupation of the province in 1803. It holds out a panoramic view of Odisha reeling under the tyranny of the Maratha ruler Shambhuji Ganesh Rao during 1769 to 1771, and of the native resistance offered in terms of sporadic but organised assaults launched on the oppressors and collaborators by the Bhuyan dacoits acting at the instances and with the support of the king of Kujanga, Paradip.
The plot that seemingly centres round a tragic love story is actually a complex one, knitting many strands of random episodes into an attractive and coherent tale of unmerited suffering, of crime and vengeance, of sin and retribution. The novel is thronged with characters from different socio-cultural backgrounds, portraying multiple contours of Odisha, the social, cultural, economic and religious ones being the most pronounced amongst them. The novel chronicles the agrarian crisis in Odisha during the Maratha rule and the debacle of the famine that threatened to bring the peasantry of Odisha down to a state of collapse. It narrates the hardship and the misery of the common man especially those who earned their living through farming, had to pass through under the repressive measures of a tyrannous governance and the selfishness and all-devouring avarice of the moneyed local landowners or zamindars.
It is also a gripping tale of a band of burglars, motivated by a romanticised ideal of plundering the rich to sustain the poor, assuming the role of the vindicators of socio-economic equality. They declare themselves as the god’s chosen moral agents for delivering violent justice to the wrongdoers. At the same time the novel camouflages a satire on the hollow morals of a socio-cultural system that compels a Hindu widow to practice religious austerity and denies her the right of living the life of a normal woman.
The novel also details the spread of a new religious cult, Vaishnavism, in Odisha that advocated the worship of Lord Hari( Vishnu) and pleaded against a discriminatory caste system that deprived the people of the lesser caste and poor economic status of their legitimate rights. The preachings of the Vaishnava monks Hanuman Dasa and Giridhari Dasa, appears to reflect a semblance of the mystique.
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The Faded Rainbow
₹250.00The Faded Rainbow is the English translation of Gourahari Das’s novel Chhayasoudhara Abasesha. The Odia novel, published in 1996, was the writer’s maiden attempt at the genre. The Faded Rainbow offers multiple interpretations to the readers. It is no doubt a study in feminism. It can also be interpreted as a quest for self by its female protagonist, Minu. Her attempts to lend meaning to her otherwise frustrated, meaningless and gloomy existence can be another way of looking at it.
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The Girl with the Brown Eyes
₹300.00This is Bhaumik Mohanty’s second novel after ‘I Did, Did I’. He continues his adventure into the world of magical realism. This sequel brings the characters to life again but with a different place, space and tone. Bhaumik has this uncanny ability to juggle between the real world and the world of imagination. His words flow like fountains as the characters and plots move between time and space. What appears to be a truth gets entangled with magical realism and creates a beautiful novel.
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The Golden Jackal and Other Stories
₹230.00Like a face in the crowd, Rajanikanta Mohanty stands obviously apart from the host of golden daffodils of Odia story tellers. Because his apprehension of the multifoliate reality cascading rhythmically all around is, by all means, novel but natty. His sensitive response as a superb creative genius to the panorama and pageantry of contemporary human frailties and frivolities commands both respect and love of enlightened readers. His universe, by no means, registers any hanky-panky since his absolute and obsessive fidelity to experience is unobtrusive and intuitive. In him the reader meets a genius that speaking to men, enters and possesses him/her emotionally and intellectually. A seasoned timber, Rajanikanta has already carved a niche for himself in heterogeneous readers’ hearts. In fact, one does not find very many Odia story tellers like him. The stories in this collection exemplify his satisfying and salubrious departure (In fact Rajani’s trademark) from the hackneyed way of pitching’ the yarn especially thematically. In this connection, it won’t be wide off the mark to remark that he is a literary seer who sees and shows the ‘Viswarupa’ (cosmic form) of our existence. The collection has 16 powerful short stories.
