Bethlehem Kuravanci is a dramatic poem written by Vedanayaka Sastri, a Tamil poet of the nineteenth century. This work, written in 1800, premiered in 1809 and revised in 1820, is the poet`s best-known work. Acclaimed in the poet`s time, the poem continues to be read by connoisseurs of Tamil literature. The work was written in the popular contemporary musical-dramatic genre, the Kuravanci (fortune-teller play), which was widely performed at Hindu courts and temples.
Kuravanci plays
A dance-drama composed in Kirttanai songs, the Kuravanci genre was extremely productive in the eighteenth century, and fortune-teller plays were performed regularly in the courts of noblemen and at temple festivals. Between 1700 and 1830 at least nine Kuravanci plays were written and performed in Tanjore. The popularity of the Kuravanci plays was due to the colourful characters, novel treatment of varied themes and its accessibility to larger publics through performance. In the Kuravanci play`s fixed plot a nomadic tribal fortune-teller (Kuratti or Kuravanci) predicts the happy union of a woman pining for the nobleman, king or god she hopes to marry. The woman in love and the fortune-teller`s mountain homeland are described in detail. The rest of the play traces the activities of the fortune-teller`s bird-catcher husband, his search for her and the union of the tribal couple.
Story of Bethlehem Kuravanci
Tevamokini (She who is in love with the Lord), is the Daughter of Zion. Tevamokini falls hopelessly in love with Jesus Christ, the Lord of Bethlehem (Pettalainatar). Faith, a female wandering fortune-teller (Vicuvaca Kuravanci) comes to Tevamokini and predicts that she will become the Bride of Christ. Meanwhile, the catechist Nanacinkan (the Birdcatcher of Wisdom) and his assistant Nuvan, who are modelled on the Bible`s `fishers of men`, use the net of the Gospels to trap birds in the form of the peoples of the world, thus thwarting the evil attempts of the False Birdcatcher, the Catholic church, to corrupt them.
Composition of Bethlehem Kuravanci
While Sastri meticulously follows the fortune-teller variety`s conventions in Bethlehem Kuravanci, he stresses the Evangelical Kuravanci`s essential difference from Hindu plays. Unlike the gods of the Hindu Kuravancis, the Lord of Bethlehem bears no resemblance to human kings. But the poet`s ultimate project in Bethlehem Kuravanci was to create an Evangelical work of epic proportions and encyclopaedic scope. For Sastri, the attraction of the fortune-teller genre lay in its ability to combine the theme of love with the imaginative construction of an expanding South Indian world in terms of Tamil aesthetic values. In the Bethlehem Kuravanci, Sastri attacks the Catholic Church and Catholic practices. It is believed that Vedanayaka Sastri meant Bethlehem Kuravanci to be the great Purana for the Tamil Evangelical community. In the first place, Bethlehem It is felt by many scholars that the Kuravanci was intended to present a complete history of Protestant Christianity. According to the author`s prose preface, the songs in the drama contain `all the principal histories of the Holy Bible`. Sastri writes a poetic history of the spread of Christianity to the present, ending with the promise of an entirely Evangelical world in the future. Also, the Evangelical Kuravanci would provide a new cosmology in the place of older Hindu ideas. Sastri makes use of the topographical and geographical themes of the Kuravanci drama to present a modern geography of the world.
The Kuravanci is a dramatic poem of expanding landscapes, intercultural encounters, and new visions of the world made clear and accessible. In Bethlehem Kuravanci, Tamil geographies expand into world geographies, while the Evangelical worldview and ideal of the spread of the Gospel are encompassed in Tamil cultural discourses.
