ShodhPatra: International Journal of Science and Humanities

The Spiritual Dimension, The Sacred Dualities: Exploring Religion in Mahapatra’s Poetic Landscape

Jayanta Mahapatra, one of the poets who have made the Indian English Poetry a novel scene in itself, paints a poetic terrain, influenced by two religious paths, which is his own Christian ethos and the prevalent Hindu ethos in Odisha. This sacred duality comes to the forefront of his poetic investigation in which the instruments of spiritual symbols are also as much anchors of his culture as they are instruments of social criticism. In such poems as Dawn at Puri, Indian Summer, and Hunger, Mahapatra uses imagery of Hindu rituals, but couples that imagery with a more abstract theme of marginalization, the oppression of women, and existential suffering. In the Imagist accuracy and allusion, he is critical about the falsehood of the religious practices that co-exist in the surroundings of poverty, caste discrimination, and patriarchal social systems. Though Hindu sacred geography gives much of his poetic vision form, his Christian vision sets a perspective and gives a touch of distance enabling him to challenge and recontextualize spiritual traditions. In this paper, I will discuss how the bicultural spiritual identity of the poet Mahapatra is referrable to his poetic-making processes as well as to his light on the intersections of faith, suffering, the human state, etc.