It comes as no surprise to anyone that Indian cinema, across industries, has depicted a multitude of mythological narratives since its earliest days— in 1917, Dadasaheb Phalke, the ‘Father of Indian cinema’, chose Valmiki’s epic Ramayana as the theme for his second movie. Bhishma Pratigna (Telugu), and Keechaka Vadham (Tamil), considered to be among the first films from South India, were based on episodes from the epic Mahabharata.
A century later, the fascination with Indian (particularly Hindu) mythology continues in our films. Two recent movies— Telugu actor Prabhas-starrer Adipurush, which is based on the Ramayana, and the Garhwali movie Jai Maa Dhari Devi, a devotional film based on a popular Uttarakhand deity— prove that devotional, folklore, and mythological stories still have relevance in the 21st century. Devotional films here refer to the genre concerned with tales of how devotees of a particular deity are saved, and the relationship between the two; folklore films are a more fantasy-driven genre where elements of a community’s folk traditions are utilised to build a larger-than-life saga. Mythological films, on the other hand, are usually adaptations of literary texts like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, portraying one or more episodes from them.
Moreover, the films also show that interest in these stories is widespread across languages, and budgets (Adipurush is one of the most expensive films ever made, according to reports, while Jai Maa Dhari Devi is a relatively smaller-scale film coming out of a region with no established industry for filmmaking).
Mythological films have spanned genres, and have even had subversive elements in them over the decades. Even though Adipurush is being marketed as a ‘pan-Indian’ film, most of the interest is being generated within the Hindi and Telugu industries. We take a look at the ways in which mythological narratives have evolved in these industries.
The evergreen stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata in Bollywood
The first Indian movie to get a premiere in the US was Vijay Bhatt’s Ram Rajya (1943), starring Prem Adib as Rama and Shobhna Samarth as Sita. Adib and Samarth were cast as the mythological pair in at least three other movies, and became so popular that they were featured as Ram and Sita on calendars, according to Heidi R.M. Pauwels’ book Indian Literature and Popular Cinema: Recasting Classics.
The 60s saw Sampoorna Ramayana (1961), a box office hit with several popular songs.
Ramayana has also seen derivative works in the 21st century: Rajkumar Santoshi’s Lajja (2001), featured the stories of four women in the oppressive patriarchal Indian society. All four had names which are versions of ‘Sita’: Vaidehi, Janki, Ramdulari and Maithili. In 2010, Mani Ratnam made the Tamil-Hindi bilingual Ravaanan/Raavan, which imagined the characters and situations of Valmiki’s epic in modern times. The films were notable for depicting the Sita character (played by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) with Stockholm syndrome (a supposed psychological condition in which kidnapping victims develop bonds with their captors), and for humanising Ravana.
The Mahabharata, meanwhile, was adapted for modern times in two very significant ways: in 1984, veteran director Shyam Benegal’s Kalyug, a multi-starrer which had actors like Shashi Kapoor, Rekha, Anant Nag, and Reema Lagoo, among others, depicted the rivalry between two business families and how their worlds collided. In 2010, Prakash Jha’s Raajneeti reimagined the epic as a political thriller and starred Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Manoj Bajpayee, Waheeda Rehman, etc.
Apart from the big screen, the epics have also enjoyed immense popularity on television sets. Ramanand Sagar is credited with bringing Ramayana and Mahabharata to Indian households through his landmark TV shows in the 80s — legend has it that streets would be empty when new episodes were broadcast since everyone would be glued to the TV set!
The evolution of Rama on screen
Prabhas’ look in Adipurush has gained both admirers and naysayers — simply because it does not fit into the way Rama has been traditionally depicted on screen. Across film and TV industries, the focus has been on Rama’s beauty, even while valorising him for his bravery and righteousness as the ‘Maryada Purushottam’. However, Prabhas’ Rama has a gym-toned body with rippling muscles: S V Srinivas, Professor at Azim Premji University and author of two books on Telugu cinema (Politics as Performance: A Social History of the Telugu Cinema and Megastar: Chiranjeevi and Telugu Cinema after NT Rama Rao), called it the ‘Baahubali body’, referring to Prabhas’ earlier hit Baahubali series, directed by S S Rajamouli, in which he played the archetypal hero.
What’s more, this is probably the first time Rama has been shown with a moustache, with almost all previous depictions, whether cinematic or in a painting, showing him as a clean-shaven man. According to Dr Uma Bhrugubanda, Associate Professor at the EFL University, Hyderabad, and author of Deities and Devotees: Cinema, Religion and Politics in South India (2018), the depiction of Rama as a “muscular, aggressive warrior” started circulating in the 1990s, first from north India and then in the south as well, along with the rise of Hindu nationalism and the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute gaining traction in public discourse.
“Earlier depictions of Rama, be it in the many literary versions of the Ramayana across India, or in paintings, sculptures or temple murals are very different. He is undoubtedly a brave warrior but the emphasis is also on his beauty, even delicate nature, his compassion and equanimity in the face of trials and tribulations,” she says. She also points out a distinction between the posters of Adipurush, which show only Prabhas posing alone: “Rama is always mostly depicted along with Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman, not as a lone muscular hero figure poised to fight.”
The link between mythology and politics in Telugu cinema
Even though Hindu mythology has influenced all major and minor film industries in India, Telugu films belonging to this genre, along with devotional and folklore films, have had significantly more success than their counterparts in other industries.
A quick look at the filmographies of the most popular Telugu actors will show that they have done more mythological/devotional/folklore films than their contemporaries in other industries, especially in the 21st century. Prabhas, for example, was the star of the Baahubali series — director S S Rajamouli has said that the films were inspired by characters in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, apart from stories in the popular Chandamama and Amar Chitra Katha comics, which dealt with religious legends, mythological figures, epics, etc.
According to Srinivas, the early years of Telugu cinema were replete with mythological films. Some examples include Bhakta Prahlada (1932), Rama Paduka Pattabhishekam (1932), and Sri Seeta Rama Jananam (1944).
He goes on to say that NTR, who had debuted in the cinematic world through a small role in Mana Desam (1949), actually entered the world of mythological films quite late. His first role in such a film came with K V Reddy’s Mayabazar (1957), where he portrayed Lord Krishna. The film is an adaptation of a Telugu oral folktale called ‘Sasirekha Parinayam’, which was in turn influenced by characters and stories from the Mahabharata. NTR would go on to play Krishna in multiple films after that and become an indelible part of the deity’s iconography in the Telugu states.
However, NTR also utilised the power of multiple narratives within the Mahabharata in other ways. As early as 1965, with the film Sri Krishna Pandaveeyam, NTR played the role of Duryodhana, who is often seen as the primary antagonist of the epic (he also played Krishna in this film). Later, with Daana Veera Soora Karna, where he played Krishna, Duryodhana, and Karna, he would present a very different perspective on ‘goodness’ and ‘duty’ than the one usually offered in mainstream discourse.
Dr Bhrugubanda says: “Kondaveeti Venkata Kavi, a well-known writer and member of the Abhyudaya Rachaitala Sangham (Progressive Writers’ Organisation) wrote the script of the film. Duryodhana and Karna are now re-presented as righteous characters, aware of the subtleties of dharma (ethics)… Later, when the film’s rhetoric was mobilised for political campaigning by NTR in 1982, it was used to signal the rise of the Kamma caste community, to which NTR belonged…”
She adds, “Duryodhana’s lengthy monologues in the film present a virulent attack on the caste system and question the privileges enjoyed by upper caste Kshatriya princes. Krishna’s ethics too come under critical scrutiny as Duryodhana launches a powerful rhetoric against the despicable way in which the lower caste character Karna and the tribal character Ekalavya are treated by the Pandavas.”
Srinivas also says that the dialogues of the film became so popular that they were circulated widely as bootleg gramophone records and audio cassettes, just like NTR’s political speeches at rallies were circulated later on in his career.
Where do women belong in a mythological world?
One of the most iconic Hindi devotional films of all time is Jai Santoshi Maa (1975), directed by Vijay Sharma. Released in the same year as blockbusters Sholay and Deewar, the film emerged as one of the biggest hits, despite having unknown faces and made on a relatively small budget.
The film recounts the trials and tribulations of a devout woman, and how her relationship with the goddess ‘Santoshi Maa’ helps her overcome the cruelty of her circumstances. The film’s popularity meant that the deity, who was obscure at the time of its release, became a widespread phenomenon and the rituals associated with her worship became ubiquitous in households across the country, and have survived till today.
A similar phenomenon had happened in post-‘70s south Indian cinema as well, where devotional melodramas centred on women’s sufferings served to provide both a sense of catharsis through the ‘goddess as saviour’ narrative, as well as a recognition of women’s oppression at the hands of patriarchy.
Brughabanda says, “Fierce lower-caste goddesses who were either reviled or made the subject of reform in the cinema of the first two decades after Independence moved centre-stage in a series of fairly popular low-budget Tamil and Telugu women’s melodramas in the 1970s and ‘80s.”
She also highlights the subversion in these films. “They foregrounded the fierce goddess as the central protagonist of the film and also the lower-caste traditions of worship. They were popular because the films revolved around women’s issues and problems. Issues of sexuality and fertility that play such an important role in rural and urban poor women’s lives are themes that animate the majority of goddess films. Pregnancy, abortions and the difficulties of the birthing process are repeatedly thematised in many of these films,” she says.
A few examples of such films are Ammoru (1995), directed by Kodi Ramakrishna; Devi Nagamma (2002), directed by Alahari; and Mahachandi (2002), directed by Bharathi Kannan.
Srinivas adds that despite being devotional genre films, Telugu goddess movies also fall squarely into the industry’s ‘idiom’, wherein they contain almost all the elements that make for a commercially successful mainstream film, like action sequences, item songs, etc.
Bhrugabanda also talks about the portrayal of Sita in earlier Telugu versions of Ramayana. “The character of Sita is also not a docile, good wife. In the film Lava Kusa (1963) for example, she is presented as a tragic figure but also as a self-respecting, defiant woman who chooses to return to her mother, the earth goddess, Bhoomata rather than return to Rama after suffering so much at this hands. She questions his actions boldly and critiques his double standards.”
On the left is the poster of Adipurush, directed by Om Raut, and on the right is the poster of Jai Santoshi Maa, directed by Vijay Sharma. (Credits: Twitter/@PrabhasRaju and Wikimedia Commons) 
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