Narratives of Hegemony and Marginalization:

Deconstructing the History Legends of India

Abstract

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.