Myth, Symbolism, Tradition, and Modernity in Girish Karnad’s Yayati and Hayavadana

Abstract

This paper examines the interplay of myth and symbolic imagination in two foundational plays of modern Indian theatre, Girish Karnad’s Yayati (1961) and Hayavadana (1971). Drawing on the Mahabharata, the Kathasaritsagara, and indigenous folk-performance traditions such as Yakshagana, Karnad reconstructs inherited narratives not as static religious relics but as dynamic cultural discourses capable of addressing contemporary psychological, ethical, and existential concerns. Through close reading and comparative analysis, the study argues that Karnad transforms mythic material into a symbolic language for exploring desire, moral responsibility, identity, completeness, gender, and human consciousness. The symbolic exchange of youth and old age in Yayati and the exchange of heads in Hayavadana function as central metaphors through which the plays interrogate the tension between individual aspiration and social obligation, body and mind, tradition and modernity. The paper further situates Karnad’s dramaturgy within postcolonial cultural nationalism and archetypal criticism, demonstrating that his theatre preserves India’s civilisational heritage while engaging critically with patriarchal authority and the fragmented condition of the modern self. It concludes that mythology, when reinterpreted through symbolic imagination, remains an indispensable medium for negotiating cultural identity in a rapidly changing society.