Author: J P Das
Translator(s): Paul St-Pierre / K K Mohapatra
Publisher: National School of Drama
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 102
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8124108501
Description
The play Sundardas recounts the activities of the first Christian missionaries in Orissa between 1826 and 1832, their meager successes, their discouragement and defeats. But the play is more than a simple retelling of historical facts; rather, it give reality to the underlying motivations of the individual actors, as well as to the conflicting world views in contact in this meeting of Christianity and Hinduism on the Indian subcontinent, in a context of empire, subjugation and colonization.
The real question dealt with in the play is, however, a more philosophical one, that is, the nature of the relationship between belief and the (religious) institutions whose role ostensibly is to further and protect it. The fundamental theme of the play is that truth cannot come through the denial of one’s identity and also that identity must not blind one to truth.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Sundardas
Author’s Note
Selected Bibliography
Note on the Author & Translators