Raja Rao's Shorter Fiction: The Enlightenment Theme

The term 'enlightenment' signifies wisdom, illumination, and realization of the essence of being. This is the goal of any meaningful search in diverse religious-spiritual traditions. This book looks at the theme of enlightenment in the shorter fiction writings of Indian author Raja Rao. The book examines motifs such as the guru-disciple relationship, the quest, quester-characters and archetypes like Devi/Mother, Shiva, Naga, etc. Being an evolved Advait Vedantin himself, enlightenment had extraordinary significance for Rao. His treatment of the theme of enlightenment 'demythifies' as well as demystifies its abstruse perception/postulation by making its quintessence comprehensible for the ordinary human characters in the fictional universe of his stories. The book critiques the complete world of Rao's stories in the light of Jungian psychology and Campbellian thought.