Kapalakundala

Summary

Kapalakundala is set around the 1604-1605, when the Mughal state was still subduing the newly acquired province of Bengal, and it weaves together events that take place across two cultural worlds. The first is the caste Hindu worlds of the pilgrims, of Nabakumar, Kapalakundala, the kapalika and the adhikari, and it turns on questions on questions of love, marriage, womanly virtue, priestly and tantric ritual, on the codes and conventions of Hindu marriage, and the contrast between the householder's life and that of ascetic. Alongside the insular provincial world there is the world of Agra and the imperial court, which are the space of political expediency and sexual license, of wealth, power, cunning and worldly sophistication.