ANALYZING AMISH TRIPATHI’S ‘SHIVA TRILOGY’ FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CAMPBELL’S ‘MONOMYTH’ THEORY

The present study seeks to analyze Amish Tripathi's ‘Shiva Trilogy' from Joseph Campbell's theory of Monomyth or more precisely The Heroes' Journey in seventeen stages as described in Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). The study aims to show how the main framework of Campbell's theory on Hero's Journey can be applied with some subtle modifications even to the analysis of modern and contemporary works like this. The traditional ideas associated with an ideal hero's journey through terrible ordeals, dangerous adventures and final ascension to mythical or god like status all can be interpreted in terms of both symbolic / psychological as well as purely physical manner. In fact, the study attempts to show that a work may not always follow in a systematic and meticulous manner to all the stages and substages that a theoretician has laid down as an expression and articulation of his vision regarding the predominant construct that any particular cultural activity might embrace to build its thematic treatment upon. An individual genius, like an author can always choose to introduce his own element of novelty into the fictive narratives or legendary myths which has been handed down by his culture to him, but when one's culture and religion are flexible enough and open, staying true to one's roots can give him more than enough space and desired freedom for exercising his creative power quite fruitfully. Several theories exist even beside that of Campbell's own exposition and though they differ from each other in their way of articulating the specific substages of each and every main stage, but in their essential appeal and final treatment they all seem to point towards some basic and universal idea of a hero's journey