The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : `Psychoanalysis should be put to greater use to study history'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 16, 2004

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

`Psychoanalysis should be put to greater use to study history'

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MAY 15. Psychoanalysis was an important tool in historical research and had to be made use of in a greater way in India for studies in history, according to Kunal Chakraborty, Professor of History, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Delivering the second "Puthupally Raghavan Memorial Lecture" organised by the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR), at the Vyloppilli Samskrithi Bhavan here today, he observed that psychoanalysis has primarily contributed to the understanding of history in two areas - the life of important persons, which can be called `psychobiographies', and in analysing myths as cultural statements.

Dwelling at length on his paper "Psychohistory: the Oedipal relationship in Puranic Mythology", he said, the mother-child relationship was a staple of mythologies all around the world, but articulated in different ways.

In the Indian culture, it has been argued that the typical response of the male child in a situation of Oedipal conflict was to offer submission to the father in advance and accept symbolic castration in return for a boon from the father.

Dr. Chakraborty talked about the myths relating to the birth of Lord Ganesha and how it revealed certain cultural attitudes in child-mother relationship. He argued that while at the all-India level the responsibility of the beheading of Ganesha primarily rested with His father, Shiva, in Bengal, the mother, Parvathi, seemed to have an implicit role in it.

This was unusual, but could be explained in terms of the historical context in which the puranas in Bengal were codified.

Bengal was a Goddess-worshipping region and when Brahmanical culture began penetrating this area, they had to acknowledge her pre-eminent presence in society. However, the predominantly patriarchal Puranic religion was unwilling to allow the goddess supremacy over male deities.

Therefore, they introduced an ambiguity in Parvathi's relationship with Ganesh. She was neither an unqualified good mother nor an explicably bad mother.

Krishna Prasad Sreedhar, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Kerala, presided over the session.

Michael Tharakan, executive council member, KCHR, and P.J. Cherian, director, KCHR, paid rich tributes to the memory of Puthupally Raghavan, who was hailed as a committed researcher in history, though he never had formal training or education in it.

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