Seamless weaving of history and fiction

Marthandavarma, a Malayalam novel published in 1891, is among the earliest historical novels in the country that answer to the description of a fictionalised retelling of history. It is based on the life of Marthandavarma, the prince of Venad, once a principality in southern Kerala, whose claim to the throne was contested by a group of feudal lords. Marthandavarma defeated them and established himself as the king. He expanded his rule to the central parts of Kerala and formed the Travancore kingdom.

The novel deals with the challenge to Marthandavarma during the early part of the 18th century but has most elements of a historical romance — a love story, subplots, a range of characters, humour, revenge, violence, resolution of conflict and a happy end. CV Raman Pillai, the author, was well-versed in languages and was trained in traditional literature and disciplines. He also had mastery over English literature and had read Shakespeare and other English authors like Walter Scott, whose historical novels had inspired him. Marthandavarma had its origin in that inspiration. But it is no imitation and is firmly rooted in the local sensibility.

CV Raman Pillai served the Travancore kingdom in an official capacity and was a royalist. He had conservative views on political and social issues. He supported the matriarchal system when the system was being challenged. The challenge to Marthandavarma was from his cousins on his father’s side, while the kingdom had followed the matriarchal system, which made him the legal successor. But Pillai had a modern sensibility acquired from his familiarity with English literature and his travels in other parts of India. History, with its political events, characters and intrigues, is only a small part of the novel. It is mainly a love story, but not between the prince and a damsel. There are characters in the novel who are not found in history but are created from the writer’s imagination.

It is the seamless weaving between history and fiction that is the novel’s strong point and has sustained its appeal. There is a variety of well-delineated characters, drawn from the society which was changing from its feudal moorings and had growing interactions with the West. (The Dutch were trying to establish a hold in Travancore then. Marthandavarma defeated them in the Colachal war,  much later than the events of the novel.) The antagonistic characters, including Marthandavarma’s cousins who challenged him and the feudal lords of eight houses (known as Ettuveetil Pillamar) who supported them, are sketched vividly. 

The novel has great value as a sociological document of a bygone era. Pillai keenly recorded the customs, dressing habits, social relations, arts and entertainments, laws, rules and forms of governance, ideas of justice and other matters. Issues and conflicts related to caste, gender and traditions come alive in the novel. These are not presented as prosaic historical information but as part of the narration and conversations. At the same time, they also give historical, social and cultural dimensions to the novel. 

As with a lot of other historical fiction, there is an interpretation and retelling of the past from the writer’s point of view. Marthandavarma presents CV Raman Pillai’s perspectives on the events of the past. Historical fiction does not present a correct picture of the past, but a greater truth about history and the human condition by recreating them in imagination. All the basic elements of human conduct — love, hatred, ambition, revenge — are there, and that is why works such as Marthandavarma have enduring appeal.  

One outstanding feature of Marthandavarma is its Malayalam style. Its majestic prose, which is a mix of Sanskrit and Malayalam, rhetorical at times, clear and flowing at other times, expressive and emotive at all times, has fascinated its readers ever since. It was a time when Malayalam prose was discovering a new idiom. The medium and the content, and the narration were all new, and CV Raman Pillai developed a new style to articulate his theme. It had the imprint of his personality. The uniqueness of the style made it extremely difficult to translate the novel into another language. This reviewer has read Marthandavarma only in Malayalam and has not read other translations of the work. GS Iyer has done this translation extremely well, and he should be commended for capturing the spirit of the narrative and the nuances of language, recreating the Marthandavarma experience for the reader.