Samskara: A Rite of a Dead Man

Samskara is both a religious novel - about a decaying Brahmin colony in a south Indian village - and a contemporary poetic reworking of ancient Hindu themes and myths. Its central event is a death, which brings in its wake a plague, moral chaos and a rebirth. Originally published in Kannada in 1965, this novel soon became enormously popular with general readers and critics. The present English translation has been widely acclaimed, and the novel has been translated into several foreign languages as well as filmed.