Narratives of Hegemony and Marginalization:

Deconstructing the History Legends of India

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7431903

Myths and legends as local sources of history reveal their implicit assumptions and
demonstrate the way in which events are filtered through the interpretations of their authors.
By examining a variety of these interpretations, we might piece together a refracted image of
the past which will ultimately present a history of “what actually happened”. There is also
an attempt to create a single narrative supported by various sources that claim to reveal the
truth in political and social terms about what may have happened there. I have substantiated
my arguments by drawing examples from the compilation of legends, Aithihyamala
(Garland of Legends), a pioneering and exhaustive collection of 126 legends of Kerala
(India), compiled and published between 1909 and 1934 by the Sanskrit-Malayalam scholar
Kottarathil Sankunni. My contention in this paper is that there is a politics behind the
subversion of “other histories” (local or subaltern) to establish a hegemonic history. One
finds a "politics" behind the legend-making, a deliberate attempt at compiling an elitist
record of legends and through it the homogenizing of the cultural past of a region.