Samskara

U. R. Ananthamurthy · 1932–2014 · India (Karnataka)

Originally Samskara (Kannada) · translated by A. K. Ramanujan

Why it matters

An orthodox village priest must decide whether to perform funeral rites for a fellow Brahmin who lived in open defiance of caste law, and no scripture will tell him how. A single unanswerable question unravels an entire caste order from within.

At a glance

Dense ritual and caste-law detail underpins a compact but morally intricate crisis.